Buffydoppled
by Bastille Kain
Summary: Anya’s spell to retrieve her neckless goes a little further awry then origanally.
1. Chap 1: Just What I Do

Author: Kain

Title: BuffyDoppled

Disclaimer: Aside from a few Original Character's I created I own nothing. The character's of Buffy, Angel, and any other show that happens to be unfortunate enough to be used here belong to other people as well.

Spoilers: Anything and Everything is fair game.

Summary: Anya's spell to retrieve her necklace goes a little further awry then originally.

Pairings: B/A(to start), B/F, B/S(eventually), plus the usual other couples.

Rating: PG-13. As always content is of a mature, if somewhat childish, nature. Language, Sex, Violence.

Feedback: Is always appreciated. Just try to keep it constructive.

Email: Kain6639@yahoo.com

Archive: If you like it that much, sure. Just be sure to let me know where it's going, and give me the credit, good or bad, for my work.

__

Chapter One: Just What I Do

Willow could feel the spells power surging all around her as it warps time and space, folding it to the caster's will. Her hand jerks spasmodically as she sees strange visions of twisted version of the real world. The powder, Anya and her, are trying to pour over the plate with the image of Anya's lost necklace land instead on Willow's hand and the small silver bracelet she had borrowed from Buffy the other night. Suddenly the visions stop, her eye snap open wide with a look of shock and dismay spread across her face.

"That was... W-w-what was that?" She stammers as she slowly rises to her feet.

Anya still kneels on the floor feeling through the sand for her necklace, "Oh, it's not here," she whines harshly pounding her hand on the tiled floor in frustration.

"Okay, that's a little blacker than I like my arts," the redhead says a moment later after she regains a little bit of her composure.

"Oh, don't be such a wimp," Anya responds exasperated by yet another setback.

"That, that-that wasn't just some temporal fold, that was some weird Hell place. I-I don't think you're telling me everything," she says very uneasy with Anya at the moment.

"I swear, I am just trying to find my necklace."

"Well, did you try looking inside the sofa in Hell?" She questions the other girl indignantly.

Anya smiles sweetly at Willow, "Look, we'll just try it again, and..."

Willow steps back quickly, "No! I-I think emphatically not!"

"I can't do it by myself!" She yells angrily at Willow.

Willow quickly moves around the room gathering her things, "That's a relief. I'm outta here."

"Fine! Go!" She yells at Willow before murmuring, "idiot child."

Willow reaches down grabbing her chicken feet, "I believe these chicken feet are mine," she says haughtily before going on in a calmer tone. "Look, m-magic is dangerous, Anya, i-it's, it's not to be toyed with. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have someone else's homework to do," she finishes before leaving the room.

Willow looks around the empty factory baffled by what's happened. An instant ago it had been full. Full of humans, full of vampires. The slayer had been here. There had been fighting. Fear had filled the air. It had been thrilling. Only now it was gone. "What the..."

A powerful fist slams into her chin knocking her to the floor. "Not so much fun when it's just you?" Buffy quips hitting her again, again, again, and again.

Willow shoves the slayer off her springing to her feet. This wasn't something she was ready for. Not without an entire clan of vampires at her back. Trying to take a slayer one on one was a hobby for the wackos like Spike.

Jumping away Willow bounds across the factory in one smooth leap. "Fuck," Buffy curses hopping back up as Willow crashes out a window. Running after her Buffy leaps out the window into the night.

________________________________________________________________________

Just What I Do - Trick Pony

Jesse James was an outlaw man  
He was always breakin' the law  
Six guns firing from both his hands  
Fastest you ever saw  
Did he do it for the money  
Or was it for the fame  
Finally somebody asked him  
Jesse, why you wanna rob them trains  
And Jessie said  
  
It's just what I do when I can't get no lovin'  
It's just what I do when I can't get no lovin'  
I'm the meanest hombre you ever saw  
'Cause lately I ain't gettin' no lovin' at all  
It's just what I do  
It's just what I do  
  
Well Orville Wright  
Set his sights  
High up in the air  
Him and Wilbur worked day and night  
He didn't seem to care  
Well the town folk said if you were meant to fly  
God would have given you wings  
What makes you want to spend all of your time  
Building that flying machine  
And Orville said  
  
It's just what I do when I can't get no lovin'  
It's just what I do when I can't get no lovin'  
I'm the first flight boy you ever saw  
'Cause lately I ain't gettin' no lovin' at all  
It's just what I do  
It's just what I do  
Ooh yeah  
  
Well Picasso painted them pictures  
There was beauty in every stroke  
When asked about his motivation  
He said, I think it's about time you should know  
It's just what I do when I can't get no lovin'  
It's just what I do when I can't get no lovin'  
I'm the workinest painter that you ever saw  
'Cause lately I ain't gettin' no lovin' at all  
It's just what I do  
It's just what I do  
It's just what I do  
It's just what I do when I can't get no lovin'


	2. Chap 2: West End Girls

__

Chapter Two: West End Girls

Things were different then they had been just a few hours ago. It wasn't just the vampires sudden disappearance from the factory that had changed dramatically, but out here on the streets everything was different as well. People walked along the streets without a care for all the vampires that no longer roamed the streets in packs, some of which were large enough to be a minor threat to her if she wasn't careful.

Something she found nearly as troublesome as the lack of vampires on the street was how everyone was acting towards her. She felt as if she had stepped into a stranger the usual episode of the twilight zone. People were smiling at her, some even said hello, or other greetings, as if they knew her. A few of them even waved to her. All the time laughing and caring on like their lives couldn't be snuffed out in the blink of a hungry vampires eye.

Buffy didn't have the vaguest idea who any of them were. She was the slayer and slayers didn't go around making friends out of people they might have to kill one day. Especially if they were dumb enough to go walking around vamp central at night.

She had lost the redheaded vampire that had manage to escape from the factory awhile ago. It was okay though because she knew where the bloodsucker was likely to head back to. The same place all of them had to have gone to. How they had managed to get out of the factory was still troubling her. The only one she had seen leave was the leather clad redhead.

It had been strange one moment she was fighting with the master of this area, then there had been a slight moment of disorientation, and only her and the one vampire had been in the factory. If they had some kind of magic that was capable of leaving her dazed while they escaped then they should have been able to kill her just as easily. Only they hadn't. Just one more thing that was bothering her since coming to Sunnydale. First there had been the vampire.

He had called himself Angel, claimed that she was suppose to have come here three years ago. Three years ago her parents had tried to have her committed because she told them about vampires and slayers. That she was the slayer for this generation. Only god knows what might have happened if Merrick hadn't been there to help her escape. She probably would have spent the rest of her life so pumped full of drugs she wouldn't have been able to think clearly never mind function as a slayer.

Her slayer senses kicked in as she came within range of a pair of vampires. It was at least a pair with how strongly she could feel them, either that or just one really strong vampire. Leaping upwards she lands on top of a fifteen foot high brick wall that ran the length of the road. Her eyes immediately locked in the scuffle taking place at the far end of the alley that ran parallel to the brick wall. Why anyone would build a brick wall just to hem in an alley baffled the young slayer, but she ignore the senselessness of the architectural blunder as she ran down the top of the wall to aid the red hair girl that was wearing the pink fuzzy sweater and fending off two vamps with a small cross. She wasn't really sure if someone with that bad fashion sense really deserved to be saved but it wasn't her destiny to chose who to save it was hers to save them.

Dropping down from above she crashes on top of the two vampires bringing all three of them to the ground. Rolling over the back of one vampire she stakes him through the back not wasting a single opportunity to get rid of an undead monster. Playing with a vampire was a good way of getting yourself hurt, better to put them away quick before they were ready for you. That was what Merrick had taught her and that was how she fought.

The second vampire was on his feet as she came up to hers. He moved in with a hard right that she simply ducked underneath driving her stake through his heart. He turned to dust with that dumbfounded expression plastered across his face that so many of his kind have when the end finally comes to them.

"Thank god you showed up when you did Buffy," Willow gasps more then just a little grateful at her friends timely arrival. Buffy turns around face to face with the vampire she had been hunting. Without thinking she punches her square in the face sending her crashing to the ground some five feet away. "OOWWW!" Willow cries out as her hands fly to her nose that's now pouring blood. "What was that for?"

Buffy narrows her eyes trying to sense the vampire that was before her, only there was nothing. "You're human," she says coming closer to Willow still fully on guard just in case the vampire had figured out a way to mask herself from a her slayer senses. It still didn't explain the amount of blood flowing from her nose though. Vampires never bled like that.

"Nice of you to notice," comes Willow's nasally retort as she rises back to her feet. "You couldn't have done that before you broke my nose?" She sarcastically questions her friend, or the person who looked like her friend but didn't dress anything like her.

"You were just a vampire," Buffy points out coming closer to the redhead. Once she got within a few feet she knew the girl in front of her was human, but she had just seen her as a vampire less then half an hour ago.

"Are you okay Buffy?" Willow questions confused by Buffy's behavior. It was scary enough having Faith go kind of psychotic a few weeks back but seeing Buffy right now she'd rather have psycho Faith standing in front of her.

Buffy brushes Willow's hands out of the way, "let me," she says grabbing hold of Willow's nose. The girl seemed to know her. Treated her like a friend, something she hadn't had in quite a long time. Three years worth of time. "This might hurt so I'm gonna countdown from three," she explains to a wide eyed Willow. "Ready?"

Willow tries to nod her head but with Buffy holding on it doesn't budge so instead she gives a muffled, "yes."

"Okay, deep breath now," Willow breathes in. "Three," Buffy says and quickly sets the broken nose with a sharp twist.

"OW!" Willow cries again.

"There you go," Buffy says to her. "You should probably get inside. That bloods really gonna attract the vamps," she explains turning away.

Willow quickly grabs hold of Buffy's shoulder, "where do you think you going?"

"There's an evil you out there I have to kill," the slayer answers not sure why she was bothering to tell this girl anything.

"Do you even know who I am?" Willow questions as scenes from the vision she had during Anya's spell flicker through her mind.

Buffy looks at her blankly, "somebody I just saved."

"We're going to see Giles," Willow announces firmly pulling Buffy along by her arm.

Buffy could have broke the girls grip anytime she wanted to but she didn't finding it strange that someone was actually concerned for her. "Why would you want to go see him?"

"Because something really strange is going on and when strange things happen we go see your watcher," Willow explains shortly.

Willow moves through the bronze feeling discontent. The building was far too calm for what she was use to. There were no humans hanging in cages waiting to be fed on. Nobody was tied to the back wall being tortured. There wasn't even a small orgy going on anywhere within the building.

People were actually hanging out. They were talking and drinking and playing pool, enjoying what was suppose to be her playground. As she stops by the pool table she takes in the situations she currently finds herself in. Everything she knew and loved had been obliterated in the blink of eye and had been replaced by this human world. It was like it had been before the Master had turned her.

As she begins to wind her way back into the crowd she notices she's attracted the eye of a human in a dark leather jacket. Willow walks around him appraisingly with an open leer before moving on. She didn't like how things are now, she wants them back to how they had been.

Suddenly someone bumps into her, "hey!" Percy grunts at the jarring contact. "Rosenberg?" He mumbles his expression going quickly from startled to amuse. "What are you doing, trick-or-treating?" He points at her derisively, "You're supposed to be at home doing my history report. I flunk that class, you're in big trouble with Snyder. Till we graduate, I own your ass," he finishes smugly.

Willow quirks her eyebrows at him with disdain, she was only slightly amused with the human in front of her. "Bored now," she says a beat before the flat of her hand smashes into his chest sending him flying onto the pool table. His back hits the table hard, but the force of the blow sends him rolling over backwards to land on the floor.

Willow smiles inwardly as the crowd watches her saunter towards Percy. With a pensive frown she comments, "I'm having a terrible night," before reaching down and grabbing hold of Percy by the throat. Digging her fingertips into his flesh she inquires expectantly, "Wanna make it better?"

Percy attempts to punch her in the face, but Willow blocks it with barely any concern weather the blow had hit her or not. She looks up into his eyes as he tries to pry her hand from his throat, her lips turning from a frown to an amused smile as he slowly realizes he can't budge her fingers. Deciding that if he can't pry her hand off he could choke the life out of her like she was doing to him.

"What's going on?" Xander questions as he pushes his way through the crowd. "Is there a funny thing?" He asks hopefully as some guy points to Percy and Willow both of whom now have two hands wrapped around each other's throats. He quickly rushes up pulling Percy off Willow, "back off!" He shouts at his fellow senior. "You stay the hell away from her!"

"Okay! Sure!" He shouts in a panicked voice as he scrambles to his feet backing away the entire time.

Xander turns back around concerned for Willow, but is stunned at how she's dressed. Willow brightens seeing the lover she thought lost to her, "Xander!" She shouts joyously.

"Will, changing the look not an idle threat with you," he remarks trying to get over his shock.

Smiling brightly she shouts, "You're alive!" As she wraps herself around him.

"Uh... Will, this is verging on naughty touching here," Xander says as her hands run sensuously over his neck and back. As her hands slide further down his back he continues, "Don't wanna fall back on bad habits." He jumps as she grabs hold of his butt, "Hands! Hands in new places!"

Willow pulls back as she realizes that he is alive. A look of distraught horror crosses her face as she says, "You're alive."

He eyes her cautiously as he replies, "you mentioned that before." Concerned for her he asks, "Will, are you okay?"

"No! Everything's different," she says in despair still hoping Xander can make it better.

"Oh. There you are," Buffy remarks stepping up to Xander.

Without taking his eyes off Willow Xander replies with a casual, "Hey, Buff."

"Aren't you gonna introduce me to your..." She stops as recognition lights her face, "Holy God, you're Willow."

"You," Willow spits out venomously as she recognizes the slayer.

Buffy smiles at Willow as she says, "You know what? I, I like the look," trying to sound supportive of Willow's choice. "It's, um... it's, it's extreme, but it, it, it looks good, you know, it's a," she takes a deep breath, "leather thing, and, uh..." Looks to Xander, "I said extreme already, right?"

Willow takes a step forward coming close to Buffy, her eyes narrow with hatred, "I don't like you," she snarls at the slayer.

Buffy looks at Willow with a hurt expression in her eyes, "Will, I'm sorry about today. You know how my foot likes to live in my mouth. But you know... Y-you really didn't have to prove anything."

Willow glares at both of them with hatred before saying, "leaving now," a moment before she brushes past them.

"Will, gotta say, not lovin' the new you," Xander calls out as Willow steps by him.

Buffy quickly goes after her. If this was what Willow really wanted then it was her place to be supportive of her friend just as Willow had always supported her. "Will, wait..." She says grasping Willow by the arm and turning her around.

"Get off me!" She roars in full vamp face. Rocked to her core Buffy doesn't even try to hold onto Willow as the vampire shakes off her grip and makes a hasty exit out the door.

Buffy couldn't believe that she was still being dragged around by this slight redhead. She could have put a stop to it anytime she wanted to only each time she thought about it Willow would turn her head back to her, gazing at her with those large eyes as if she could tell exactly what she was thinking. The tiny slayer wasn't use to somebody having any kind of control over her. The last person had been Merrick, but he was gone now, died saving her life.

Kakistos hadn't out lived him by more then a couple of minutes. Seeing Merrick cut down had driven her into a beserker like state. A state in which she had wiped out Kakistos and his entire clan in a matter of minutes without remembering one single second of it.

Since then she hadn't allowed herself to get close to anyone, not that she had really gotten close to anyone before that time. Nobody except for Merrick. The Council had sent other watchers to replace Merrick, an entire litany of tweed clad Englishman. She had gone her own way as often as not for no other reason then they wanted her to do something else.

She thinks about coming to a stop again and just like all the other times Willow looks back at her, "we're almost there," she assures her.

Buffy looks around her but the only thing she can see is a large building looming before her. "Where going there?" She asks Willow a trace of shock in her voice. As far as she can tell the building standing before her was a high school.

"The library actually," Willow answers. "That's were Giles is. He should be able to figure what's going on."

"Jeeves," Buffy smirks, "last time I saw him he was going on about how this wasn't how the world was meant to be, something about a vengy demon. Having to destroy its power center."

Willow nods her head silently. It fit with what she had come with. If Anya was this vengy demon Buffy was talking about then the necklace she had been trying to retrieve was her power center. How did this Buffy figure into it had Willow stumped. She couldn't think of anything that could have brought this Buffy from that reality into this one.

The two girls remained silent the rest of the trip to the library. Willow trying to find a reasonable explanation that would account for this uber Buffy's presence here. Buffy still trying to figure out why she was going along with Willow when she didn't want to. There was still the vampire version of Willow out there causing who knows what kind of havoc.

"Giles!" Willow calls out loudly as she pushes open the double doors to the library as she drags a reluctant Buffy inside behind her.

Giles glances up from the text he's reading for a moment. Seeing Willow and Buffy striding in through the double doors Giles sighs slightly. He had been hoping for a semi quiet night to catch up on cataloguing his latest text. He frowns slightly as the two girls approach.

Willow had her serious problem look plastered all over her face. Of course for Willow a serious problem could be the fact she was tardy for one of her classes. While the sight of Buffy in militaristic style garb, openly wearing several weapons, her face free of any makeup, and a hard gleam in her eyes, was only slightly less worrisome. "What seems to be the problem tonight?" He asks the two of them hoping it was nothing more serious then Willow, having lost one of her text books and needed a replacement.

Buffy looks Giles over. This wasn't the same frantic man barely hanging on by the edge of his fingernails she had meant a few hours ago. This man was cool, reserved, in total control of his surroundings. Yet it was the same man. "What the hell's going on around here?" She demands a heartbeat before Willow asks Giles.

"Notice anything different about Buffy?"

Giles blinks slightly annoyed that they would show up here for something as ridiculous as this. "Yes, she's changed her clothes. Very nice, now if you'll excuse me I have work to get back to," he says turning away.

"Hold up Jeeves," Buffy growls not liking the way he was just dismissing her. She closes the distance between them with several quick strides. Grabbing him around his bicep she forces him to turn around none too gently, "you're the one that had me hump my way down here from Cleveland just so I could take care of your little nest of vamps. That's done, now something even freakier is going on around here."

Giles looks down at Buffy's almost painful grip then back at the girl herself, "such as?"

"You for one thing, her," she adds pointing at Willow. "She was a vampire when I first met her only now she's not. You actually look like you're a pretty together kind of guy even if you are an uptight British assho... Watcher. Now what the hell is going on?" She demands with a slight edge to her voice.

"I think I might have an idea as to what's going on," Willow says pulling everyone's eyes to her. "Earlier Anya asked me to help her retrieve her necklace with a spell that created a small temporal fold," Giles gives her an unreadable look as she continues with the story. "I didn't think too much about it, I mean today had just gone from bad to worst and I was all mopey and depressed because I was this old reliable, dog, geyser person and then Anya asked me to help her with a spell and I was like great somebody actually wants me to help them do something and I know it was kind of dumb of me to do it without looking into it better but I wasn't really thinking with my best head this afternoon. During the spell I kept getting these strange flashes of me and Buffy, Xander, Oz, Angel, you, Anya, everybody except they were all skewered. Buffy was like you see her now, Xander and me were vampires, the Master was still alive."

"And you believe that somehow this spell brought this here Buffy from her world to this one?" Giles asks picking up with were Willow was going.

Willow nods her head as she verbally confirms Giles question with a reflective, "yeah."

"Not just me," Buffy remarks. "Your double's here as well," She informs them hopping up onto the large table in the middle of the room.

The door swings open as Faith strides into the library. Buffy's back on her feet in an instant sensing something different from the dark hair girl that just walked into the room. Not a vampire but definitely something other then human. "Well look at you B, see you finally decide to quite playing Barbie." Faith begins as she checks out Buffy's new look with barely contained desire. "Gotta say I'm liking the new look."

________________________________________________________________________

West End Girls - Pet Shop Boys

(....forever)  
  
Sometimes you're better off dead  
There's gun in your hand and it's pointing at your head  
You think you're mad, too unstable  
Kicking in chairs and knocking down tables  
In a restaurant in a West End town  
Call the police, there's a madman around  
Running down underground to a dive bar  
In a West End town  
  
In a West End town, a dead end world  
The East End boys and West End girls  
In a West End town, a dead end world  
The East End boys and West End girls  
West End girls  
  
Too many shadows, whispering voices  
Faces on posters, too many choices  
If, when, why, what?  
How much have you got?  
Have you got it, do you get it, if so, how often?  
And which do you choose, a hard or soft option?  
(How much do you need?)  
  
In a West End town, a dead end world  
The East End boys and West End girls  
In a West End town, a dead end world  
The East End boys and West End girls  
West End girls  
West End girls  
  
(How much do you need?)  
  
In a West End town, a dead end world  
The East End boys and West End girls  
Oooh West End town, a dead end world  
East End boys, West End Girls  
West End girls  
  
You've got a heart of glass or a heart of stone  
Just you wait 'till I get you home  
We've got no future, we've got no past  
Here today, built to last  
In every city, in every nation  
From Lake Geneva to the Finland station  
(How far have you been?)  
  
In a West End town, a dead end world  
The East End boys and West End girls  
A West End town, a dead end world  
East End Boys, West End girls  
West End girls  
  
West End girls  
  
West End girls  
(How far have you been?)  
  
Girls  
East End boys  
And West End girls  
And West End girls  
And West End girls  
  
East End boys  
The West End girls  
The West End boys  
And West End girls  
  
The West End girls  
The West End boys  
The West End girls


	3. Chap 3: Carry On

__

Chapter Three: Carry On

Willow strides down the alley just looking for something to take her mind off the events of the last few minutes, she desperately needed something to take the edge off. Behind her two vampires, dressed in well cut business suits, step out of a side alley. "Willow Rosenburg," the first vampire inquires.

She stops smiling to herself as her prays have been answered. "I'm not supposed to talk to strangers," she informs the pair.

"Then we won't talk," he answers nudging his partner as they move in on the attack.

Willow sidekicks the silent vampire causing him to stumble back as the talker lunges for her. She manages to latch onto his shoulder first flipping him to the ground. Turning she sees his partner back up. A hook kick to the side of his head staggers him, but doesn't take him off his feet. Moving back in he throws two punches that Willow easily blocks before delivering a punch to his head. Dazed, Willow grabs his shoulder and flips him over slamming him to the concrete.

The other lunges at her again only to have her foot smash into his ribs knocking him off his feet. He jumps back up quickly grabbing hold of her shoulder. Willow grabs his hand keeping it in place, as she presses down on his shoulder with her other hand flipping him over to his back. Having never let go of his hand she jerks back hard snapping the wrist causing him to grunt.

Not giving him the chance to get back to his feet Willow quickly straddles his chest which prevents him from rising. "You've made me cranky," she tells him as she brushes her finger over his.

"There's been a mistake here. We were sent after a human," he pants out his reply.

Willow slightly intrigued by this, "really?" Somebody in this town thought she was human, "who do you work for"

"I'm not telling you a thing," he says in a hoarsely defiant voice.

With smiles crookedly as she takes one of his fingers in her hand and snaps it. The vampire screams in pain as Willow's smile broadens. She enjoyed torturing vampires even more then she did humans. They didn't die nearly as quickly as humans did and she could do so much more to them. "Who do you work for?" She asks again hoping he would try to hold out.

"Wilkins. The Mayor," he gasps giving in too quickly for her liking.

Taking another finger she snaps it as well causing him to scream again. "Who do you work for?" She asks suggestively.

He smiles at her as he finally understands the meaning off her question, "you."

She drops his arm moving off him as he friend gets back up rubbing the back of his head. Willow smiles a vicious grin, "get your friends. Bring them here. The world's no fun anymore. We're gonna make it the way it was. Starting with the Bronze," she commands and the pair nod to their new boss.

Buffy rested her combat booted feet on one of the high back wooden chairs that surrounded the table she was currently sitting on. She tilted the chair back on its hind legs as she rested her arms on her knees. To say she was a picture of a bored slayer would have been comparable to saying the Sahara was hot at noon. It was so obvious it didn't need to be said.

She glances over at the brunette leaning back in the chair next to her, Faith. She was tall, taller then her anyway, long limbed and sleek. The younger girl exuded casual danger, almost draped it over herself like a cloak or a suit of armor. Faith had her dark sneakers resting the table, despite several admonitions by Giles, so close to Buffy they were practically in her lap. With her arms folded over her chest, and the partial sneer on her lips, she was the essence of an angry young girl.

"So you're a slayer here?" She finally says having nothing better to do then talk with this raven hair girl.

"So you're from a different reality?" Faith retorts.

Buffy smirks at her response, "so what are you doing sitting around cooling your heels for?" She gestures outside, "when you could be out there doing what you're meant to be doing."

"Do you always asks this many annoying questions?"

"Only when I'm bored," Buffy answers the brunette with a slight shrug.

Faith glances at Willow who's at the other end of the table with her nose stuffed in a book. It wasn't quite the dead the boss was going for, but it was better then nothing. At least she was still alive. It was one thing Faith was glad about. "Wanna get out of here?"

Buffy grins allowing the chair to settle silently to the floor. "I thought you'd never ask," she says getting up.

Faith follows suit rising silently to her feet as well. Together the two slayers leave the room without making a sound until the double doors swing close behind them. Willow glances up as the wide doors swoosh shut. "Shoot," She gasps getting to her feet and rushing out the doors. After looking both ways down the empty corridors she sighs knowing there was no way she was going to be able to track down the two slayers. Turning back around she re-enters the library through the doors she just ran out. "Giles," she calls out softly as she approaches the table.

"Ow," Giles mutters a moment before she hears a soft thud followed by a "bloody brilliant Rupert."

"Are you okay?"

"Fine," he says stepping out from the stacks carrying a large volume in one hand.

"You're bleeding," she tells him worriedly seeing the small cut in the center of his forehead.

Giles winces slightly as he touches the tender spot. Feeling the blood on his fingertips he says to Willow, "perhaps you should go fetch the first aid kit out of my office."

She nods her head saying, "you should probably sit down. I'll be right back, before you even know I'm gone," she adds as she disappears into his office. Giles places the large book on the table as he sits in one of the sturdy chairs surrounding the table. Stepping back out a few seconds later, "there bet you didn't even know I was gone?" She asks as she sets the first aid kit on the table. Pulling out the antiseptic she cleans out the wound before applying a bandage.

"...all my fault," Buffy says as Xander holds the door open for her. "If I had..."

"Holy!" Xander shouts seeing Willow leaning over Giles. Without thinking he rushes forward as he shouts, "get the hell away from him!" Pulling a large wooden cross out of his back pocket he adds, "back you blood sucking fiend!" As he presses the cross to the side of Willow's head pushing her away from Giles.

"Have you..."

"Hey," Willow shouts swatting at his hands.

"...lost your bloody mind?" Giles asks grabbing hold of Xander and pulling him back.

"What are you doing?"

Xander blinks, "it didn't burn?" He says questioningly.

"Of course..." She begins as first Xander and then Buffy crash into her in an ever tightening hug.

"Thank god," Xander nearly sobs.

A statement followed quickly by Buffy's whimpered, "you're alive."

Anya saunters up to the bar sitting down on one of the stools on the short end of the wrap around. "What a day," she says wearily to the bartender a bare moment before she adds, "Gimme a beer."

"I.D." He replies in a straight face. Anya's eyes go wide as she gives him an incredulous look that doesn't effect him in the slightest as he repeats in the same flat monotone, "I.D."

Anya smacks her fist on the table as she loses her temper, "I'm eleven hundred and twenty years old! Just gimme a frigging beer!"

"I.D." He says once again completely unimpressed by her tantrum.

Anya sighs in defeat, "gimme a Coke."

Across the Bronze Oz and Devon set up their equipment for the gig they're going to be performing later that night. "Man, we need a roadie," Devon comments wistfully as he adds, "other bands have roadies."

"Well, other bands know more than three chords. Your professional bands can play up to six, sometimes seven completely different chords," Oz replies in his normal stoic tone of voice.

"That's just, like, fruity jazz bands," he responds looking at Oz for confirmation.

"Oz," Angel says appearing beside the young men.

Oz looks up, "hey, man. You looking for Buffy?"

Angel gives a slight nod to his head as he glances around the bronze before returning his attention to the young guitarist. "As always," he verbally confirms.

"Well, no sightings as of yet, but I think she said she'd show," he replies as the door to the club opens.

Nearly a dozen vampires walk in quickly threading their way throughout the crowd. The large vampire that Willow had been fighting earlier grabs a nearby boy and hurls him into a table. "That doesn't look good," Oz whispers quietly to Angel.

"Everybody, shut up!" He yells to everyone in the club. From her seat at the bar Anya begins to take an interest in the vampires. "Alright. Nobody cause any trouble or try to leave... and nobody gets hurt."

"Why don't I believe him?" Angel questions quietly.

"Well, he lacks credibility," Oz answers just as softly as he notices one of the vampires prevent a guy from leaving through the back door. Keeping his voice just as quiet he asks, "can you get outta here?"

Angel cast a quick glance up as he says, "skylight in the roof. I can make it."

"I think we need some backup," Oz replies worriedly

Angel looks around the Bronze as he says, "I think I'm needed here."

Oz quirks an eyebrow at the vampire, "ten to one. Could get pointless."

The door opens again as another vampire enters the building. Walking close by is Willow who cast a glance around at everyone extremely pleased by the results so far. At the far end of the bar Anya straightens slightly even more intrigued by the events taking place.

Willow smiles as she reaches the middle of the dance floor. "Look. Everyone's all afraid," she says before she lets out a blissful sigh. "It's just like old times."

"Get Buffy. Do it now," Oz whispers hoarsely as he tries to comprehend what he's witnessing.

Angel wheels around without a word and quickly ascends the ropes to the ceiling. Devon moves up to Oz with a smile tugging at his lips, "dude. Check out your girlfriend."

Willow leisurely strolls around the Bronze until she comes to a girl sitting by herself. In a sweet voice Willow asks the girl, "what's your name?"

"Sandy," the terrified young woman replies.

Willow lightly brushes her hand along Sandy's arm. Taking hold of her hand she slowly pulls her to the middle of the dance floor. Smiling at the girl she tells her, "you don't have to be afraid... just to please me." In a louder voice she says to everyone else, "if you're all good boys and girls, we'll make you young and strong forever and ever." Slowly she turns Sandy to face the stage as she moves behind her. Still fondling with her shoulders and head she continues to address the crowd, "we'll have fun," she says enticingly.

Sandy flinches when Willow pulls her hair to the side forcing her to tilt her head. Willow takes a long, slow stroke with her tongue as she licks Sandy's neck. Lifting her head she looks around the crowd with a clear warning in her voice as she says, "if not." Her true vampire face slides on as she smiles, gives her lips a light lick before savagely sinking her fangs into Sandy's neck and drinking the young girl down in a matter of heartbeats.

Oz tries to go to Sandy's aid but is easily stopped by one of the vampires as Devon says, "no, man!"

Willow lets Sandy's lifeless body fall back to the floor as she morphs back into her human guise. Idly she says to the crowd, "Questions? Comments?"

"Willow. You don't wanna do this," Oz says trying to get through to her.

She turns around approaching Oz, "I don't?" She asks as a proud smile blossoms on her face. "But I'm so good at it."

The vampire holding Oz lets him go. The young musician quickly rushes forward to meet her. "Who did this to you?" He demands horrified that his Willow was a vampire.

Recognition slowly lights her face as she remembers him. Disgustedly she says, "I know you. You're a White Hat," her eyes narrow suspiciously, "how come you're talking to me like we're friends?"

Unafraid of the vampires Anya walks up behind Willow. Stopping a foot or so away she says, "because he thinks you're someone else. He thinks you're the Willow that belongs in this reality."

Willow looks at Anya as she says, "another me?"

Anya nods slightly, "you know this isn't your world, right? I mean, you know you don't belong here?"

"No," Willow says softly. "This is a dumb world," she adds. A moment later a wistful smile graces her lips, "in my world there are people in chains, and we can ride them like ponies."

"You wanna get back there," Anya makes the obvious statement.

Willow nods, "yeah."

"So do I," Anya adds.

Buffy walks down the partially light alley alongside Faith without any worries. Even if she had been alone she still wouldn't have felt bothered by being in the dark corridor. With Faith at her side she felt the added security of having a fellow slayer at her side. It was a felling she had never know before.

"You never answered me," the tiny blonde grumbles as she keeps her pace even with Faith's despite the brunette's longer strides.

Faith glances at Buffy. It felt strange to have the blonde at her side and not feel the tension that had built up between the two of them over the past few weeks. She wasn't sure if she wanted to lose that feeling of instant camaraderie that was there. "Which question was that? You asked enough of them," she manages to inquire somewhat diplomatically.

"Why you were sticking around the library," Buffy answers. "You don't seem like the sit around kind of slayer. You're more of a, live life by the seat of your pants, kind of girl."

She could lie, but she knew that Buffy would find out the truth eventually. All she would have to do was ask any of the Scooby gang and she would here an earful of their truth. She takes a deep breath and says, "I killed a man." She tenses slightly as she waits for Buffy's disdain to wash over her. Only there was nothing.

All Buffy did was say, "and?"

Faith blinks. That had definitely not been what she had been expecting. "And what?"

"So you killed someone," she says with a shrug. "Sometimes it's necessary. Sometimes accidents happen in the heat of battle."

Faith stares at Buffy as she begins to understand the blondes attitude. "You've killed people," the brunette states stunned.

Buffy give a light shrug of her shoulders as she continues down the alleyway. "When I've had to," she replies stonily. "Evil humans. Evil demons. I usually don't have the option of playing nice," she says slowing down to allow Faith to catch up with her. "So where are you taking me?"

Faith looks up, a slight gleam in her eyes as she answers. "The Bronze."

Buffy glances at the brunette as she asks, "any vamps?"

Faith rolls her shoulders as she says, "I'm sure there'll be a few. Looking for an early meal, but they'll probably take off once they realize we're there." She gives a soft laugh as she adds, "they get a little nervous when we're around."

"Only you haven't been around a lot lately, hugh?"

Faith shrugs again, "just so we're clear. I did go a little crazy for awhile. Then again I didn't have a whole lot of support from my friends either," she says bitterly as she places a special emphasis on the word friends.

"So they left you to hang all by yourself?"

She shakes her head as she give Buffy a half hearted look, "you left me out on my own."

Buffy stares dumbfounded at Faith's comment, this time she's the one that has to hurry to catch up. As she comes alongside Faith she asks the younger girl in disbelieve, "I was there?"

"Right there with me," Faith answers unable to keep the anger out of her voice.

Buffy can't believe that. She can't believe that she would abandon a fellow slayer no matter what the reason. There wasn't nothing that she could say. It wasn't her that left Faith to her own devices, yet she still felt responsible. So instead of saying anything she kept silent and simply walk along beside Faith. Without thinking she took Faith's hand in hers and gave it a gentle squeeze.

At first Faith flinched at the contact. She had been going to pull her hand away, but instead she decided to leave it where it was. It wasn't often that anybody showed her any kind of support. Beside she liked the feel of Buffy's warm hand in hers, liked the feel of their interlaced fingers.

________________________________________________________________________

Carry On - Pat Green

Baby's just a little bit tired of the city

Billboards and bullshit got her down

Seem like you need a little hill country

A Little backroads driving

little bit of the old top down

Yeah, everybody gotta get away sometime

Forget about yourself for awhile

Seems to me that all you need is a ragtop car to ride with me

I'm ok, I'm alright

Just might get a little high tonight

I'm ok, I'm alright

Carry on

Ol' Walt Wilkins lives up in Nashville

You know his eyes have seen the miles

Walt why don't you jump in Jim T's caddy

Come down to Texas and drink with me awhile

Yeah, everybody gotta get away sometime

Forget about yourself for awhile

Will go down to El Arroyo have some tacos and beer yeah and let ourselves go

I'm ok, I'm alright

Just might try to get right tonight

I'm ok, I'm alright

Carry on

I'm gonna make sure that you got your troubles

I'm gonna make sure that you work too hard

Ain't nobody that don't get tired

Watch your troubles pile up big in your own backyard

Sometimes you've got to grab your world with your own two hands

Set it spinning off on a course all your own

Take yourself a big bag for your shoulder

Find yourself some good times

Bring them on back home

Yeah, everybody gotta get away sometime

Forget about yourself for awhile

Lay your whole life upon a shelf

Got no one to blame but your own damn self

Ok, alright,

Heaven only know what gonna happen tonight

I'm ok, I'm alright,

I'm ok, I'm alright,

I'm ok, I'm alright,

I'm ok, I'm alright,

Oh carry on, yeah - 


	4. Chap 4: Electric Land

__

Chapter Four: Electric Land

Angel glides from one rooftop to the next in his race to get to the high school. There were literally then a dozen lives depending on him reaching the school as fast as possible. His nostrils flare slightly as he picks out a pair of familiar scents only a few streets over and he quickly veers from his original course to his new one with barely any hint of effort.

Finding both slayers together had been a surprise. Since the incident with Finch the two of them had barely been on speaking terms with each other. Now seeing them striding down one of Sunnydale's many alleys, obviously heading to the Bronze, holding hands was something of a shock.

With the way they were walking together it shouted at him that there was something deeper going on between the two of them. The aroma that filled the air confirmed his suspicions. His jealousy grew by leaps and bounds as he watches the pair walking along ahead of him.

Even under the best of circumstances he had no desire to see Faith, but right now more then anything, he wanted to see her dead for daring to touch what was his. That was nothing for what he felt towards the blonde. Buffy was his body and soul, she wasn't anybody else's, especially not some cheap harlot like Faith.

It was going to be hard, but he would put up with them for the sake of saving the people at the Bronze. A dozen vampires was going to take all three of them. He'd have to teach Buffy her proper place later, after they had taken care of the vampires.

Buffy felt the vampire following them even though it was still nearly twenty yards away. A master to be sure but little more then that. "Don't look," she whispers so softly to Faith, as she leans in closer to the taller girl, that nothing more then a half a pace away would have heard.

Faith could feel her pulse quicken as Buffy's breath blew in her ear. She was so distracted by the sensation that it took her a second to realize that speaking, and by that point Buffy was saying, in that still low voice, "... a blood sucker's following us. You want him or should I take him?"

Faith blinks slightly as she asks, "how do you know?" Her voice was just as soft as Buffy's.

"You can't feel him?" The blonde asks with slight bit of confusion over that. She wonders what watchers in this reality taught their slayer's if it wasn't how to pick out vampires and demons.

"The only thing I feel is you," Faith answers before she can think not to say something that corny. What she said was true. It just wasn't something anybody would say to somebody that was going to be leaving in who knew know how long. And it definitely wasn't something she ever went around saying to anybody.

Buffy grins even as she feels the color rise to her cheeks. "Down here," she says pulling Faith down an even narrower alley.

Angel spots the two girls as they duck down the alley. He had picked up on the increase in their arousal even as far back as he was. His mind instantly races with the images of what they could be doing in the dark of a secluded alley.

He quickly follows the pair around the corner. A solid boot connects with his chest sending him crashing into the far wall. He brings his arm up, blocking the stake being driven towards his chest.

Instinctively he backfist the light haired stake wielder knocking her back a pace. The person who had kicked him grabs his hand, jerks and twist, flipping him over on to his back. He had a very good idea about who was attacking him as her fist slams into his face.

Angel bucks upward, dislodging Faith and flipping her off him. "You?" Buffy gapes as she recognizes Angel.

"Yeah me..." Angel snarls as he gets to his feet.

"Are you like my personal stalker wherever I go," She hisses getting tired of seeing the oppressive vampire.

"... You remember the boyfriend," he finishes angrily not hearing her question as he was unable to keep a check on his emotions. His ears roaring with the jealousy surging through him.

Buffy's jaw practically hits the pavement. A moment later her mouth snaps shut as she turns her head to look at Faith. "Boyfriend?" She questions her darker counterpart. Looking back at Angel, her disgust clearly evident in her face, "I'm dating that... That thing?"

"Hell B. You screwed that thing," Faith tells her.

Buffy's face turns an interesting shade of green as she groans, "oh... Oh, god. I think I'm going to be sick."

Angel blinks as confusion reigns supreme in his head. "What's going on here?"

"If you're looking for B Angel you should probably check the library," Faith tells him with an arrogant smirk. As far as she was concerned it was about time Buffy saw Angel for what he is.

He shakes his head as he responds to her comment by saying, "if I had time to figure out what you're talking about... There's trouble at the Bronze. A gang of vamps, about a dozen," he pauses for a moment to give the next part of his news the emphasis it deserves. "One of them's Willow."

Buffy's face lights up, "come on," she enthuses grabbing hold of Faith's hand.

"Um B. Don't know if you heard what the A-man just said..."

"Twelve vamps," she breaks in with a shrug. "Six each. Not a problem is it?" She inquires concern seeping into her voice.

Faith glances down at the pavement as she murmurs, "the only time I fought five vamps someone died."

"Ungh," Buffy grunts wanting to get on with the fight. Her little skirmish with Angel, then learning the details of her relationship with him in this reality had left her in need of a good slaying. She glances at Angel, "fine. He can come. You two can split the other six up amongst yourselves," she offers graciously. A moment later she's dragging Faith down along leaving Angel to catch up however he will.

Angel blinks rapidly as he tries to figure out what had just happened. With the way Buffy had just blown him off, ignored him, and acted like he was a piece of filth he wondered if somebody had put the blonde under some kind of spell, because that was most definitely not how Buffy was to suppose to be around him.

She should have been fawning all over him. Her only concern was suppose to be for him. This was not going to work at all. She was suppose to love him and only him. Growling softly to himself he quickly rushes to catch up to the two slayers.

"Alone at last," Willow says lowly from only a few feet behind her human counterpart.

Willow jumps to her feet as she whirls around. As she lands facing her evil self she silently curses herself for not going with Xander and Buffy as they were trying to track down Buffy's more urban self. They had told her there was a vampire version of herself out there but until she saw herself in a black leather bodysuit she hadn't really been a believer. Now she wishes she had and had stuck closer to one of the three slayers roaming Sunnydale right now.

Willow looks her human self up and down appraisingly. "Well, look at me. I'm all fuzzy," she mocks.

"What do I want with you?" Willow asks quickly before she realizes what she's said. "Uh..."

Willow smiles grimly, "your little school friend Anya said that you're the one that brought me here. She said that you could get me back to my world."

"Oh," she starts but then realizes what she's talking about and adds a bit more forcefully, "oh! Oops!"

"But I don't know..." she begins as she gives herself a wicked smile, "I kinda like the idea of the two of us," she begins enticingly as she moves closer to Willow. "We could be quite a team, if you came around to my way of thinking," she continues her meaning clear to Willow as she backs up towards the checkout counter.

The young girl knew she was in serious trouble. She also knew there was a cross on the counter and underneath the counter was the dart gun they were sometimes forced to use on Oz. She also knew she had about no chance of reaching either one but she had to make the attempt so she inches her way closer to the counter. "Would that mean we have to snuggle?" She asks uncertainly hoping to by herself a little time.

Willow however knew herself well enough to know what she was doing. Lunging forward, so fast that all Willow caught was a black and red blur, she grabs her human self by the throat and shoves her back against the checkout counter. With a quick swipe of her hand she brushes the cross off the counter. She smiles evilly at herself as she asks, "What do you say, Wanna be bad?"

"Wow!" Buffy exhales an amazement as she steps into the library.

Willow takes a slight step back and to the side to bring her face to face with Buffy at the blonde's exclamation. "You!" The vampire hisses as she keeps a powerful hand wrapped around Willow's throat. Like this she knows she can keep the slayer at bay long enough for her to think of someway out of this situation.

Buffy smirks tightly as she responds, "and you."

"You know what'll happen if you take even a single step towards me?" The vampire warns with a malicious grin.

"She'll die a horrible and gruesome death," Buffy suggest lightly.

Willow frowns. While it sounded like fun it would take far too long for the time she had. "I snap her neck," she tells Buffy simply.

The tiny slayer sighs deeply as she shakes her head at Willow. "That's so dated. Figure somebody as smart as you would be able to come up with something a little more original then that," she says despairingly.

Willow's smile never fades. "Sometimes the old ways or the best," she remarks dryly.

Willow slams the keyboard into the back of the leather clad vampire's head causing her to stumble forward and breaking her grip. She quickly scrambles away from her evil counterpart. Stepping forward Buffy punches the vampire square in the face sending her crashing to the floor. "But sometimes you just have to try something new," she quips.

Willow sweeps her feet at Buffy's legs, but she easily leaps over the attack. Willow uses the moment to flip back to her feet. Moving quickly she rushes towards the door only to have Buffy grab her by the arm. Spinning her around in a full circle Buffy slams the vampire into the solid post shaking it as well as the checkout counter, the books, and the computer on the back shelf knocking a few loose objects on top of Willow's head.

Willow snaps her elbow back smashing the hard joint into Buffy's face. The tiny Slayer stumbles back a step as Willow spins around launching a follow up punch at Buffy's head. She could sense something different about this slayer then the one she had fought earlier. It was almost as if she was holding back. Perhaps because in this reality she was her best friend. It was something she would be able to use to her advantage later, after she got out of this mess and killed Anya for sticking her in the middle of it in the first place.

Buffy brushes the punch aside as Willow slides past on her left side. The blonde twirls, pivoting on her right foot, her left leg rising in a reverse crescent kick that smashes into Willow's back pushing her further forward. Moving in quickly she manages to catch Willow's back kick flush in her chest. The force of the kick flipping her over the table.

A quite swoosh, followed by a soft thud echoes in the library. Willow looks down at the dart sticking out of her leather clad side, then at her human self holding the dart gun. A look of dismay crosses her face. A moment later she says, "shit," before falling to the floor.

"They're in there all right," Buffy tells the brunette slayer at her side and the dark vampire just beyond her as they scout around the building. "Ten, maybe a dozen..."

"That's what I told you," Angel mutters disgruntle.

"... kinda hard to tell," she adds glancing beyond Faith at Angel.

"How do you know?" Faith questions not missing the tension between Buffy and Angel. She was finding the vampire's jealousy over the attention Buffy was showering her with amusing. Then again Angel didn't know this wasn't his Buffy and she was in no hurry to tell him.

Buffy shoots a quick glance at Faith before refocusing back on the Bronze. "You don't feel them?"

"Feel what?" Faith questions without taking her eyes off the building.

With an disgusted sneer directed at Angel she says, "things like him. Like maggots crawling all over your skin." Then in a loud whisper adds, "actually I prefer the maggots."

"How do you want to handle this?" Angel manages to ask with only a slight distortion in his voice. He was still highly confused by Buffy's sudden change in attitudes concerning him and Faith, and was having a hard time keeping his anger in check.

Buffy gives Angel a quick look before swiveling her head to look at the roof as she asks, "you can get up there? Right?"

"Yeah," he answers the tiny blonde.

"How long before you can get to the back door?" She inquires looking at the younger slayer.

Faith shrugs as she gives Buffy her answer, "about a minute. Maybe. Not more then that."

Buffy gives a slight jerk of her head as she says, "roof, backdoor," to the respective person. "We go in two minutes from now."

"Where are you going to be?" Angel questions turning dark eyes on the blonde.

Buffy smirks saying, "I'll be going in the front door."

The thick front door bursting inward was the first sign for the vampires inside the bronze that all was not well in their world. The shattering of glass from overhead as Angel drops lightly to the pool table below gives them their second clue. Faith asking, "how's it hanging guys?" As she blocks the back exit is their third hint that a world of trouble had just descended on them.

The fight, such as it was, didn't last long. Even with better then three to one odds, the vampires for their part, showed far more interest in escaping then taking on both slayers and the traitorous Angel. With the back exit being blocked by both Faith and Angel, most thought it would be a simpler matter to slip past the tiny blonde guarding the front door. Those foolish enough to try to get past the her met with a quick and dusty end.

Once it became obvious that the vampires had lost control of the club the patrons had made a bee line for the door. For a few minutes it had been a mad house as the humans had competed with the vampires to get out. Amazingly Buffy didn't mistake a single human for a vampire as both rushed at her. Relying completely on her internal senses to differentiate vampire from human she unerringly stuck true each time.

She didn't waste time on needlessly beating the vampires, or bantering with them. One powerful strike to stun, then a quick stake thrust to the heart before their numbers could overwhelm her. It was quick and it was simple and she wasted no time as she dispatched the six vampires that tried to rush past her.

Without any hesitation, or compunction, Faith made short work of the Mayor's two leashed vampires before they could accidentally, or deliberately, reveal who she was working for. Likewise Angel had very little difficulty in dispatching the three vampires he had been engaged with. Oz on the other hand made sure Anya never even come close to escaping.

"Where's Willow?" Angel demands as he makes his way over to Oz who was keeping a close on a dark hair girl with a frown somewhere between petulant and indignant smeared over her face.

Buffy watches Oz closely as she approaches the young man Angel was talking to. There was something not quite human about him. He wasn't a vampire, or any other type of demon that she had run across before. Her first instinct was to kill him, whatever he was, but both Faith and Angel were treating as an ally. Not that she put any trust in the vampire's opinion.

"She went to the library," Oz tells them.

The two slayer share a quick look with each other, both realizing that they had left Willow and Giles at the library alone. True the Mayor wanted Willow dead, but Faith was still having a hard time coming to terms with that. She knew she shouldn't care about what was going to happen to the redhead, if she didn't die then she was going to hack her way into the Mayor's files and find out what he was up to. She feels Buffy grab her hand and yank her towards to the door. Without knowing what else to do she allows the tiny blonde to drag her out the door, and inevitably to the library.

Oz watches the interaction between the three with mild interest. He could tell something strange was going on between them, but he didn't know what it is. Angel was about to follow behind when Oz stops him with the next thing he says. "It wasn't our Willow. Somehow, Willow and Anya brought her into our world from a different reality."

Just like that the reason behind Buffy's odd behavior tonight, her barely concealed loathing of him, her nearness to Faith fall into place. He also had the distinct impression that Faith had more then likely known the entire time, and said nothing to him. That was not something he was likely to forget any time soon.

Willow looks down at herself lying on the inside of the cage. She felt disconcerted by the sight of seeing herself in such a state. "If it wasn't for the clothes and that whole grr thing she has going we'd never be able to tell the two of you apart," Xander comments from just behind his two best friends.

Buffy nods her head as she replies, "tell me about it. I kept pulling my punches because she looks like you," she says with a quick look at Willow trying to get over the shock of seeing the two of them. "She almost kicked my butt. I'm just lucky our Wills was here," she finishes tossing her arm over Willow's shoulder and giving her a strong squeeze.

"And that she's as proficient with the dart gun as she is," Giles adds as he looks up from the book he's reading at the large table. "That she doesn't go around shooting the wrong person," he chides Buffy almost jokingly.

The tiny blonde stares indignantly at her watcher's comment, but before she can say anything Willow says looking up at every one, "I couldn't stake her. I mean she's me," She continues glancing back down, "a really twisted, kinda gay version of me. But still me."

Everyone's head swivels around as the doors swing inward and Cordelia breezes in. The brunette takes a rather uninterested glance at everyone gathered in front of the cage. With a slight shrug she strides easily across the floor asking, "what's got all you people gawking?"

Willow moves aside to make a little space for the tall cheerleader as Xander flippantly answers, "oh nothing much. We're just checking out Willow's evil twin."

Cordelia looks down at the leather clad redhead, then up at the fuzzy pink sweater wearing redhead, then back down. "Well unless she goes around stealing other people's boyfriends she can't be any more evil then you," she snipes bitingly as she looks back up at Willow. "Now can she?" With that she turns around and starts to walk towards the double doors before they swing open as Buffy and Faith rush in. She swivels her head between the two Buffy's several times before finally remarking with a slight jerk of her head at the Buffy standing between Willow and Xander, "and I suppose you're her evil twin?"

Willow jumps a little having totally forgotten about Buffy's own double running around loose. "Oh, um. Buffy there was something I wanted to tell you, but I don't think I have to tell you anymore because you just kind of walk in, and it would probably be a good thing if I just kind of stopped talking now," she finishes with a sharp click of her teeth.

Xander's eyes swivel between the two teenage blondes unable to decide which he would rather be fantasizing about having in his bed. The one standing next to him was sweet while the one standing by Faith look like she had a bit of a bite to her. Like something sharp and tangy.

The two blondes however seem to ignore everything else in the room except for each other. Both of them thinking almost identical thoughts. What could have happened to make me dress like that?

"Of all the stupid, reckless, irresponsible, ill conceived, with total disregard for the safety of the public..."

Buffy zones out as Giles continues to rant. She had just finished explaining the events that led up to and the subsequent attack on the Bronze, plus the cleaning out of the nearly dozen vampires inside. She didn't know what she had been expecting, but she was relatively positive that this wasn't it. Watchers in her reality had never shown the proper gratitude for the work she did in her estimation. Always to busy worrying over the next big event as far as she was concerned, but this was beyond any indignation her watchers had ever subjected her to. "Don't forget blowhard," she cuts into his tirade.

Giles stops as he glowers at the girl scowling at him. "What the..."

"Because you're about the biggest one I've ever met," the surly blonde interrupts him again.

"You have absolutely no idea the risk you were putting the civilians inside the Bronze at by allowing Faith to take part in your attack," Giles informs Buffy.

Buffy couldn't help but tightening her scowl as she glares at the watcher seeing how things around here were. "Oh I have a pretty clear picture of what's going on around here," she snaps at the watcher while casting a quick glance at herself. A moment later she spits on the floor at his feet, just barely missing his shoes. It was easy for her to see that in this reality she was a spoiled little girl that had never had to fight or scrape for what she wanted. She played the good little girl for the watcher while painting Faith as the bad seed.

"She killed a man," Buffy says deliberately, disgust filling her voice by the rougher girl's actions. She seems to know instinctively what her alternate reality counterpart was talking about without her actually having to say anything.

Buffy gives a light shrug of her shoulders as she remarks with a placid, "so." She gives Buffy the once over with a disquieting glare. A moment later she asks, "and what, you weren't there? You didn't throw Finch into a dumpster?" Faith had given a brief thumbnail description of the incident. She was sure the brunette wasn't telling her everything, but right now it didn't matter to her.

"I told her to stop. I told her he was human," Buffy growls getting angrier with each moment that passes.

Buffy smirks at herself as she folds her arm over her chest feeling her own superiority over this reality's Buffy. Merrick had taken a lot of time training her on being able to differentiate between human and vampire, between vampires and other kinds of demons. It was obviously training this Buffy, and Faith lacked and she couldn't help pointing it out by saying, "not soon enough to keep him alive."

"Why you arrogant bitch," Buffy snaps at the cocky girl staring at her. "Where do you get off judging me?"

"Because I'm better then you," she replies arrogantly.

Buffy stands up tensing as she softly questions the blonde leaning against the table in a voice that could leave a skim of ice on a pool of water, "you think so?"

Buffy snorts derisively as she rises from the table. "Anytime you think you're ready Barbie. Just step right up," she challenges herself.

"This isn't solving anything," Giles remarks cutting into the rising tension between the two blondes as he simply hopes to bring the girls up short of an actual physical confrontation. "The fact remains that your actions were reprehensible..."

"My actions!" Buffy cuts in angrily as she rounds on the watcher. In a lower, but not much softer voice she starts over again. "My actions saved a good twenty people tonight. Or did you think those vamps were just going to wait around for you jerks to pull your thumbs out of your asses before they started chowing down?"

"It does not excuse the fact that you recklessly endangered those people in the first place," Giles insist as for one of the few times Buffy doesn't interrupt him.

Buffy frowns slightly as she says, "there were three of us. If you include the vampire."

"His name is Angel," Buffy responds in a tight voice.

"Right, your very own piece of rigor mortis," she responds not attempting to keep the disgust out of her voice. Turning around to face herself she can't keep the hatred of the fact that a vampire had slept with her, knew her in intimate ways no one in her reality ever did, from blazing in her eyes. "Keep him away from me or else your going to be taking your boyfriend out on dates in a dust buster," the blonde warns with a burning glare.

The two blondes, that look so much alike but are in fact extremely different from each, stare for long moments at each other without backing down. They match heated glare with heated glare until Buffy finally spits out, "screw this," as she surges forward deliberately brushing into her pastel wearing counter part.

Buffy tries to grab hold of her belligerent double, but she simply knocks her hand away as she strides towards the door. "Where do you think going?" Giles demands of the young girl.

"Someplace that's not here," Buffy answers, "As in away."

"We still have to perform the spell to send you and vampire Willow back to your rightful world," Giles reminds the girl as she's halfway to the door.

Buffy raises her right fist to head level and extends her middle finger without slowing her pace. Pushing through the double doors she suddenly reverses direction with a quick spin having come to a sudden decision. "You know what? Screw that. If you think I'm going back to that world. A world that's on the brink of falling into the abyss no matter how hard I fight, how many vampires I stake, demons I kill. That just keeps getting worse and worse..." she trails off softly as her gaze shifts from them down to the floor. With a swift shake of her head she looks back up at the two of them. "I have a chance to get out and I'm taking it."

"You have a sacred..."

"I'm a seventeen year old girl who's been shoved into something I never wanted..."

"What, and I wanted it?" Buffy demands angrily.

Buffy glares at herself disdainfully. "You know nothing about me, with your cozy little life, going to school during the day, playing the super hero at night with all your friends palling around telling you how great you are, how you make such a difference." She had heard quite a bit about her life here from Faith, but she had gleaned even more from Willow. "I've spent the last two years fighting for my life night and day. Living every single day with a death sentence hanging over my head and I'm done with it," she finishes in a voice hard enough to smash boulders with its intensity. Turning on her heel she storms from the room without a backwards glance. She wasn't sure what was going to be different here, but she couldn't see how it could be any worse from where she came from.

________________________________________________________________________

Electric Land - Bad Company

The neon lights go flashing by  
Electric Land is in my eyes  
The underworld is on the move  
And everybody's got something to prove  
  
The taxi driver delivers the news  
Somebody out there has blown a fuse  
We're passing the scene a man is dead  
A thirty eight blew away his head  
  
A jolt of lightning set's me back a pace  
Feel like a visitor from outer space  
Please excuse me if I don't quite understand  
I'm just a stranger in Electric Land  
  
Willing to have a good time  
You live for the moment the moment is fine  
You're up in your room the lights are low  
Nefore you know it's time for the show  
  
A jolt of lightning set's me back a pace  
Feel like a visitor from outer space  
Please excuse me if I don't quite understand  
I'm just a stranger in Electric Land  



	5. Chap 5: Standing Outside the Fire

__

Chapter Five: Out of the Noise

Unlike a few hours ago, the factory was now full of people, some living a couple unliving, though not in the way Willow would like. Angel was standing close to the redheaded vampire just in case she decides to get up to some mischief. Willow was paying close attention to what Anya was doing asking and posing all kinds of questions to the ex-vengeance demon, which she found highly irritating. Oz was hovering close by, suspicious of Anya after her actions inside the bronze early tonight. Xander was standing close by Willow. Every now and then he would ask the vampire some inane question to which she would give short, often cryptic answers.

The factory door opens allowing Buffy and then Giles to enter the barren building. "I must be seeing things," Xander remarks seeing Buffy, "there's only one of you."

"Yeah, what can I say. My evil twin decided that she couldn't make it today," Buffy quips still irritated by her counterpart's words.

Giles grimaces at Buffy's flippant remark. "Yes, well. It seems Buffy has decided to take a short vacation, if you will, before returning to her proper reality." Buffy glances worriedly at Giles but doesn't say anything. "So you just go ahead and send her," he adds pointing at Willow, "back to her world."

Anya graces Giles with a frown as she responds to his order saying, "that might sound all fine and dandy, but do you even have the slightest inclination of what can happen if you constantly keep punching holes into different realities." She gives a short shake of her head just before continuing, "obviously not or you'd just stake the vampire and keep the extra slayer. The lower beings know you could use the help."

"What are you blathering about?" Giles asks taking a threatening step towards her.

Anya gives a slight sigh hating the fact that she was forced to deal with humans. It had been some much easier when she could just eviserate them and be done with it. "Each time you do the spell its like chipping away at a damn, eventually leaks are going to start springing up. Creatures, demons you've already dealt with here but didn't there, popping up all over the place. Don't know about you guys, but I'm not all that interested in running into the Master on some..."

"Wait a minute," Willow cuts in forcefully. "You knew this was possible before you did the spell the first time and you still did it?"

Anya rolls her eyes at Willow's naivete. "Like I had to worry about that. I was going to be a vengeance demon again. Immortal."

"You weren't concerned at all?" Giles questions her.

Anya ignores the question as she says, "if you not doing the spell I have a math test I must prepare to fail," she informs them picking up her backpack.

"What are we suppose to do with vamp Willow?" Xander finally asking the question nobody else wanting to.

Buffy looks at the red haired demon with hard eyes. "Looks like its the stake," she mutters dejectedly.

"You can't," Willow gasps.

The tiny slayer sighs as she replies saying, "I know. But we can't leave her running around loose."

Angel knew he could stake Willow if the need to arose, but wisely he keeps that to himself. "There is something that can be done."

Both Buffy and Willow look at him questioningly. "You don't mean?" Giles questions in disbelief.

"Yeah I do," he answers quickly.

Willow looks around at the suddenly stern faces surrounding her with something close to fear settling in the pit of her stomach. "Don't I have any say in this?" She demands fiercely.

"No," six voices say in unison.

Faith lay on the bed in her motel room staring up at the cracked, stained ceiling above her. She knew she should have gone back to her loft, but for some reason she didn't want to leave the small room. The slayer knew that both Buffy and Willow were being sent back to their world. Had probably been sent back already.

The simple truth was she just didn't want to be found right now so she was here. There was no need to worry about the scoobies showing up. Even if they weren't busy with the spell there still wasn't much chance of Buffy or her pals dropping by unexpectedly.

As for the Mayor. Well she would just have to deal with that if it came about.

A hard pounding on the thin door shakes it along with the door casing and the wall. Faith gives a slight start at the sudden sound as she springs off the bed. "Open up Faith!" Buffy shouts loud enough so everyone in town probably heard her. Again she pounds on the door which seems to bulge slightly under the pressure. "I know you're in there."

Faith moves to the door almost in the blink of an eye before Buffy can knock the door off its hinges. She pulls it open and then stares at her golden counterpart that she thought was suppose to be gone by now. For some reason she can feel a sense of relief flooding her body as she stares at Buffy. "What are you doing here?" She finally manages to ask once she remembers how.

"I'm not going back," Buffy answers pushing her way past Faith and into the small room. She jumps on the bed, doubting her choice as the bed comes close to collapsing under her. She bounces a couple of times with a worried look on her face until she comes to a stop.

That was something the brunette hadn't expected to hear come out of either Buffy's mouth. The blonde, this one even more so then the other, had always seemed honor bound, or duty bound to be the perfect slayer. The one that didn't shirk her responsibilities. Only her statement makes Faith stammer almost in shock as she asks, "huh? Wha? What the hell are you talking about?"

"After a lot of careful consideration," Buffy begins as she rolls over onto her side to face at Faith, "I decided to get the hell out when the opportunity presented itself."

Faith stares at the tiny blonde for a moment. "What about your duty? Your responsibility to protect the world?"

"You mean my death sentence?" Buffy inquires with a light sneer as she swings her legs off the bed. "Governor called in the eleventh hour granting me my pardon. Sorry if that bothers you so much," she adds getting off the bed. "I'll be getting out of your hair."

Faith grabs hold of Buffy's arm as she tries to push her way past the brunette, "I didn't mean it like that," she says locking eyes with the blonde. "It's just. I don't know... You just seemed so gung ho. Vampire. Lets go kill it," she says in gruff voice.

Buffy smiles lightly as she says, "I wasn't that bad."

"Close," Faith responds. "Angel's got the bruises to prove it."

"You did more damage then I did," Buffy replies.

"So?"

Buffy shrugs, "maybe the thought of going back to world were I didn't have nothing waiting for me except an early grave didn't appeal to me."

"You still got the same thing here," Faith replies.

"But at least here I got a friend," Buffy tells her softly.

"Yeah," Faith replies a bit moodily. Being close to the blonde when she had been going back to her universe wasn't a problem. There was no risk of disappointing her. Now with her staying here. Eventually everything was going to come to a head. "So you going to be staying with Mrs. S..."

Buffy snorts derisively giving Faith her opinion on the subject. "That bitch is here?" She snarls angrily sitting up on the bed. This wasn't something she had been expecting having assumed the same things may have taken place here that had in her world. Suddenly she wonders what else might be different between the two.

"Whoa, Mrs. S is cool," Faith replies defending Buffy's mother. The malice in the blonde's voice was nearly a palpable force, but there was also something else she could here in the petite girl's tone. "She's the only one that's treated me good since I got here."

"Then you must have Joyce confused with someone else," Buffy remarks as she eases to her feet. She paces the small room like a caged tiger. "Cause," she begins turning to face Faith, "when she found out about me being the slayer, about me having to fight vampires and keep people safe she had a nice padded room reserved for me. I was at the front door when Merrick showed up and pulled me out of there, out of Los Angeles, California completely. So don't go telling me about what a wonderful woman Joyce is. I know better," she growls softly.

"That's your Joyce not this one," Faith responds harshly. "Maybe she didn't do the same things here she did there. Who knows, maybe that's why you're such a prissy little bitch here. All because your mom didn't try to have you committed."

Buffy mutters something too unintelligible to make out as she spins around in a tight circle. It reminds Faith of an angry Yosemite Sam when things weren't going good for Bugs' arch nemesis. She can't help the soft laugh that escapes her mouth.

As the tiny blonde whirls back around on the taller girl; face nearly beat red, nostrils flaring, eyes almost bursting out of her head. Faith burst out laughing at the image that springs up in her head. Buffy with a thick blonde mustache, an exaggerated ten gallon hat, and a pair of six shooters strapped around her waist.

"What?" Buffy demands with a tight scowl thinking Faith has finally lost her mind.

Faith points at her still unable to talk from the gales of laughter that nearly have her bent double every time she looks at Buffy. Finally she grabs at hips as if drawing a pair of guns as she stomps around the room. The entire time doing a raucous Yosemite Sam monologue of unintelligible curse words.

Within seconds Buffy breaks down laughing at the Faith's antics. She has no idea what has gotten into the brunette, if she really has gone insane or not, but she looks funny doing it.

"You can't do this!" Willow rages as she strains against the chains securing her to the wall. "It's inhuman!"

"You sure those chains are going to hold her?" Xander asks as Willow struggles to reach Giles.

Angel shrugs as he replies saying, "they held Faith."

Buffy watches silently as Giles stands in front of the vampire. She was worried about his recent behavior. Nothing that shows on the outside, but sometimes like now he seems to go out of his way to torment a vampire. Usually it was Angel, which she understood, but right now it was Willow.

Giles stands just beyond the vampire's reach without flinching. "Yes well, you're not really human now are you?" Her inquires maliciously. Taunting her. Before Angel killing Jenny he had never taken personal pleasure in inflicting pain on a vampire.

They were nothing more then rabid animals in need of killing. That was all. Afterwards though the more pain one of them suffers before dying the more enjoyment he takes from the moment.

Willow locks her amber eyes with his soft brown orbs. "I'm not going to forget this," she assures him.

"I'm sure your not," he agrees. As he turns sharply Willow lunges for him again, but comes up well short as he walks calmly away from her.

"Which brings up another thing," Buffy says as she turns to face the two tall brunettes.

"What's that?" Xander questions.

"Wesley is so not going to like this," Buffy replies with a glint in her eyes. Tweaking her new watcher's nose, just to tweak it, was fast becoming one of her all time favorite things to do.

"I'm just surprised Giles had all the components for the spell," Angel remarks as the ex-watcher joins them.

Giles glares softly at the vampire for a brief moment before saying, "once I learnt of your return it seemed a prudent coarse of action to take. One never knows what might cause a moment of bliss after all." He may have to tolerate the vampire, for Buffy's sake, but it didn't mean he had to be friendly towards him. "Its the kind of thing one shouldn't become complacent about. Wouldn't you agree?"

Angel scowls at the librarian. It didn't matter what he did to make up for Angelus' actions Giles just wouldn't let the pass stay buried.

"Enough Giles," Buffy says tiredly. She was beginning to find it irritating to continually referee the two men. It was more Giles taking pot shots at Angel every chance he could get more then anything, but it was still irritating.

"Anyway," Giles continues after a moment, "as it turns out it was rather fortuitous that I did have them on hand."

"I'm ready guys," Willow calls from the top of the stairs. She waits a few seconds then disappears back into one of the second floor rooms.

"Good luck," Angel tells Giles as he ascends the winding staircase.

Willow paces, glaring at her three watchers. Walking back and forth she tugs on her bounds.

They thought they had her.

All because of the little whipped puppy.

They were all fools. She had received her training at the hands of the Master himself. If the puppy had been taught by the Master as she was he would have relished in whatever pain anyone inflicted on him. Even now he would be enjoying the pain, the suffering that the soul brings. Enjoy it so much it would lead to a moment of true bliss.

But he was weak.

He had been weak in her world and he was even weaker here.

He broke when he could have been so much more.

She would show them. She would cause so much misery and suffering that the bliss would be overwhelming. Then when the soul was gone she would ask them to put it back on just so she could feel it all over again, and again, and again until there was nobody left to put it back on.

In the meantime, while they thought they had another tame vampire on their hands, she would wreak so much havoc in their lives. Starting with the slayer, her pet puppy, and herself.

Faith strides silently down the corridors of Sunnydale's City Hall, a small smile playing at the corner of her lips. Buffy had finally fallen asleep on the bed allowing her to slip out of the motel room. The Mayor was waiting for her report, had probably been waiting for a while now.

Coming up to his office she knocks quickly before pushing the door open. "Hey there boss," she greets carefully as she steps into the room and pushes the door close behind her.

"Well now, if it isn't my girl Faith," Mayor Wilkens greets jovially. "Why you wouldn't believe the devil of a time I've had trying to track you down."

Faith grins lightly, "yeah. Sorry about that. Its just been a crazy day and I wasn't sure if one of Buffy's pals would stop by all unexpected like or something."

He steeples his fingers as he listens to her, swiveling in his chair from side to side. "How crazy of day? Have you heard if the witch is dead yet?" He inquires gleefully, a bright, expectant smile splitting his face.

"That's part of the craziness I need to tell you about," she answers. In quick, short sentences that he listens to with increasing interest the young slayer details the nights high lights. "I couldn't let them go and I couldn't take the chance of them spilling the beans."

"No, no, no. You did the right thing," he assures her.

"I hope they weren't important or anything," she says sincerely.

"Well you know good help is hard to find," he tells her seriously. "But loyalty is rather important as well and since they decided to jump onto somebody else's band wagon I don't think I can really call them good help now can I?" He inquires with a soft chuckle as he stands from his chair to walk around his desk. "And I already moved all my files so no risk there. What about this other Buffy? Do you really think she's planning on staying?"

Faith shrugs as she says, "yeah. She saw a way were she doesn't have to throw her life away for people who couldn't care less about her, hell..."

"Language Faith," Mayor Wilkens scolds her softly.

The brunette shrugs again. "...from the sounds of it her life's been as bad as mine."

"There are no bystanders here Faith," Wilkens says sternly leading Faith over to the window as he continues, "people are either with us or against us now Faith. We can't afford to have some wild card sitting on the sidelines. Not now."

"I know, just give me a couple days. She hates Buffy and her pals, doesn't much care for Mr. S either. She doesn't have a problem killing humans. A couple days and I'd be able to feel her out, find out if she'd be willing to work for you."

He stares out his window a speculative look creasing his face as he stares out into the predawn glow. "Two days," he says finally. "I'll have Marko keep a close eye on..."

"Don't," Faith says quickly. "Her training's more complete then mine. She can sense vampires, maybe even other demons almost fifty yards away."

The Mayor gives a slight nod of his head. "Alright. Just remember, two days."

Faith nods, "I will."

Wilkens listens as the young slayer exits his office. This was definitely not a part of his plan. He needs Faith isolated, alone, depending solely on him for her emotional support. Not developing new friendships with a Buffy from an alternate reality.

He waits a few minutes, giving Faith plenty of time to leave the building before going to his phone. "Send Marko up to my office. I got a rather urgent job for him and his crew."

Faith blinks as she hears the light whistling coming from the figure leaning against the squats building's white brick wall. She recognizes Buffy- alternate reality Buffy- instantly. It was the way she stood there, arms folded across her chest and a blank scowl smearing her lips. Its a look her twin from this reality wouldn't have been able to pull off to save her life.

They were barely a block from City Hall, but were well out of sight being situated behind several buildings. With a disgruntle sigh Faith walks over to the blonde.

"Hey," Buffy says by way of greeting as she straightens.

"Hey," Faith responds.

"What's up?" She questions in a mild tone.

Faith shrugs without apparent concern as she replies, "couldn't sleep so I figured I'd take a walk maybe get lucky and stake a few vamps while I was out." With that she begins walking back towards the motel.

Buffy falls in step next to her and the two walk down the road with a tense silence surrounding them. Half way back to the motel Buffy stops suddenly, her body becoming even more tense. Faith stops with her asking, "what is it?"

"Vamps," Buffy replies with a hungry glint in her eyes. "Five of them in that abandoned warehouse," she adds heading for the four story building.

This time its Faith that has to step quickly in order to keep up with the tiny blonde as Buffy marches directly for the front door. Without pausing she kicks the door in before disappearing from Faith's sight as she darts inside. Faith curses slightly as she follows Buffy inside.

The door swings close behind her. Faith spins to see Buffy standing in front of it. "What the..."

"Why?" Buffy growls cutting her off.

"The Vamps?" Faith reminds her.

"I lied," the petite slayer responds. "Must be catchy," she mutters loudly while striding across the floor to stand in front of the brunette.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Faith demands allowing her own anger to color her tone.

"I'm not stupid Faith so don't treat me like I am," she warns the younger girl with a heated glare. "How could you even stand being in the same room as that thing?"

"You're just like them," Faith hisses at her. "Just can't wait to start judging me, looking down at me."

"Right, because I wanna lose the only the friend I have," Buffy snorts. "Tell me there's a good reason for this. That you're undercover, trying to bring him down from inside," she pleads. She had heard the stories about slayers in the past going evil, but that was all she ever thought them to be. Stories, tales told by the watchers to keep their slayer in line. She had never thought they could be true, and she had definitely never imagined she would come across one. "Tell me anything except that you're working for the very thing we're called to destroy," the tiny blonde begs.

"What should I have done?" She storms tossing her hands in the air. "Let them drag me back to the mother land to re-educate me, or if that didn't work kill me so they could get the next in line. I don't think so. The mayor needs me, he cares about me," she adds shoving a finger at Buffy.

"Cares about you," Buffy gags as she brushes Faith's finger out of her face. "You're nothing but a weapon to him. Something that he can use and use up and toss..."

"Shut up!" Faith roars as her fist slams into Buffy's jaw dropping the blonde to a knee.

Buffy scowls up at Faith as she rises back to her feet. "Aside when..."

"Shut up!" She screams again as her other fist drops her to her other knee.

Again Buffy stands back up with the same look blazing across her face. "He's..."

"Shut up!" Faith swings again only this time the blonde blocks the punch.

Her return punch sends Faith sprawling to the concrete floor. "Finished with you," she finishes as Faith springs to her feet. With a wild scream she attacks at blinding speed.

Sweat beads on Willow's brow as she sits Indian style on the hard stone floor inside one of the mansions upstairs rooms as she chants in a lost ancient dialect. On her right is Giles, on her left is Oz each reciting a specific phrase in Latin while fanning the smoke that rises from the scented candles, and smoldering herbs with feathers. The orb of thesulah glows brilliantly for a moment before vanishing from sight.

A piercing, gut wrenching scream cuts through the otherwise silent night.

Buffy gawks in wonder as an etheral blue light erupts from Willow's eyes. Her back arching back nearly to the point of snapping in two as her keening wail continues to send chills up everyone's spine. It seems as if hours have passed since the tie when the vampire began her cry and when she finally drops to the ground like a marionette with her strings cut.

Willow chuckles softly to herself. The pain had been exquisite, was still exquisite. It was quite possibly the most wonderful sensation to ever course through her body.

Hearing the slayer and Xander rush forward she reminds herself that she is suppose to be suffering if her plan is to have any chance at success. Changing her giggling laugh into wrenching sobs as she looks at the two humans with tears beginning to flow from her eyes. "What... what's going on," she sputters meekly as she pushes herself back away from the pair. "Xander," she murmurs in wonder. Then a look of sheer horror washes over her face as she lets out a horrified gasp saying, "but I killed you."

"Its going to be okay," Xander reassures her trying to sound confident.

As if the previous expression wasn't enough she adds utter revulsion to it. "How can you say that?" She cries backing away even further. "I'm a monster... I've done things; horrible, cruel, vile, disgusting things and enjoyed every single one." Looking at Buffy hope shines in her eyes as she begs, "you're the slayer. You can kill me, you have to, to make sure I can't hurt anyone ever again."

Buffy shakes her head, "you got your soul now. You can be good again."

"I killed my entire family with joy! I deserve to be dead... You have to kill me," she pleads pitifully.

"I can't," Buffy replies simply her hand reaching out to the suffering creature before her.

Willow cringes away from her touch, as much because of her act as for the revulsion she feels toward the blonde. "Get... get away from me," she cries pushing herself back against the wall. "I'm not safe to be around... I might," she looks up at them with imploring eyes, "I might hurt you. So... Please, please just get away from me." With that she huddles in on herself allowing her body to shake slightly while she continues to sob.

Buffy and Xander look at each other for a moment before backing away. They had both thought they were going to be getting Willow back. It was only in retrospect that they realize they had. They got Willow with all the pain, guilt, remorse, and memories of having killed countless people.

"Let me," Angel says putting a gentle hand on Buffy's shoulder. "I do have a little experience dealing with this."

Buffy nods as she replies, "just help her." She hadn't realize it was going to be this bad, she had only seen Angel for a few minutes before sending him to hell. If she had maybe it would have given her the strength necessary to stake the image of her best friend.

She glances up in time to see Giles appear at the second floor railing padding his forehead down with his white handkerchief. She can only shrug at his questioning look.

Swinging her head back around she instantly grimaces at the sight of Willow with her arms wrapping around Angel as she buries her head into his shoulder. Deep sobs continueing to wrack her body as Angel engulfs the small girl an a tight embrace. There was something about seeing Angel hold someone that intimately, a way she would never be able to hold him for fear of what might happen, that set her blood boiling.

Unbeknownst to any of them, even as deep, gut wrenching sobs continue to wrack her small body, Willow grins slightly her face hidden by Angel's strong body.

Buffy was trying hard not to retaliate against the brunette coming at her with seemingly everything she had. It was hard, Faith's pain driven rage giving her the necessary edge to nearly match her. Every second the younger girl would come that much closer, and she was actually having to block about half her punches.

"Fight me," Faith growls throwing a hard roundhouse kick at Buffy's head. The blonde dodges the kick, barely, by ducking back fractionally to let the foot sail pass. Faith continues to spin, her backfist heading straight for her head. She blocks the punch and as Faith tries the same with her other hand Buffy pushes the brunette forward by shoving her in the back.

She didn't know why she wasn't fighting back. Her own temper was close to spilling over, but aside from that first punch she threw she felt it was important not to hit Faith again.

It was almost as if hitting Faith had hurt her more. Not physically, but somewhere deep inside of her chest. It had felt like someone had been able to put their hand around her heart and was squeezing the organ until it nearly burst.

Faith recovers quickly whirling back on Buffy, "why aren't you fighting me!" She screams charging forward. Again she's forced to dodge, block, and evade the brunette's high speed, high impact punches.

The same pain lances through her even now and she curses herself for lower her guard. For dropping her defenses and allowing somebody to get close enough to hurt her. She had thought she learnt those lessons a long time ago.

First with her father leaving her. Then with her mother trying to have her committed. Each had caused her to seal herself off just a little more. The final nail had been driven in a year and half ago in Baltimore when Merrick had died saving her life. Again.

Since then she had been going around looking for something to kill her off. She had known what she was doing. It was the reasons she went to Sunnydale instead of Cleveland in the first place. There was a master there- one of the truly old ones- while all Cleveland had was cadre of vampires and a few other various demons.

She should have died in Sunnydale.

Only she had wound up here in this Sunnydale because of some freaky magical accident. Then she had meant Faith and the sullen brunette had somehow struck a spark in her. Made her want to live again.

She was the reason she had stayed here instead of going back to her world.

Only she was working for the bad guys.

And she couldn't bring herself to fight her. Didn't want to fight her.

"Fight back!" Faith snarls again even though its the last thing she wants. Buffy stops her hard right fist easily. "Fight me!" She cries out.

"No!" Buffy shouts back. Lunging forward she grabs a handful of Faith's hair in each hand jerking her head straight.

"Let go of me," she hisses driving her knee into Buffy's side.

She moves with the impact bringing Faith with her when she refuses to let go. "No," she says again, softer, but no less fiercely. "I am not letting go of you," she adds a heartbeat later in the same passive tone.

Faith thinks she sees something deep in the blondes eyes for a moment. Its only for a moment because the next thing she knows her head is being pulled forward as Buffy moves in. A second later she finds herself being thoroughly, passionately kissed as Buffy tries to devour her whole with her mouth. For a brief instant she gives into the blonde's hunger as she returns the kiss with equal fervor.

Then her anger, her aggression, her rage reassert themselves and she flips the blonde to the concrete floor under their feet. It has the desired effect of breaking the kiss but Buffy keeps hold of her hair bringing her to the floor. With a quick move Faith soon finds herself under Buffy staring up into her possessive, desire filled eyes.

"I'm never letting go of you," she says in a soft, firm voice. A moment later her head descends again as she recaptures Faith's lips. She can feel the brunette responding underneath her just as she can feel her own heart beat like a trip hammer inside her chest as fear drags at her.

She shoves the emotion aside as she feels the soft, yielding, yet surprising hard body pressed beneath her. This is what she wants. This is what she has been denying herself her entire life.

Only there had never been anybody she could have shared herself with like this before, not her whole self. There was no one that she wouldn't have had to hold herself back with and if she couldn't love somebody with her whole being what was the point of loving anyone at all.

________________________________________________________________________

Standing Outside the Fire - Garth Brooks

We call them cool   
Those hearts that have no scars to show  
The ones that never do let go   
And risk the tables being turned.   
  
We call them fools   
Who have to dance within the flame  
Who chance the sorrow and the shame   
That always comes with getting burned.   
But you've got to be tough when consumed by desire  
'Cause it's not enough just to stand outside the fire.  
  
We call them strong   
Those who can face this world alone  
Who seem to get by on their own   
Those who will never take the fall.   
We call them weak   
Who are unable to resist  
The slightest chance love might exist  
And for that forsake it all.   
They're so hell-bent on giving, walking a wire   
Convinced it's not living if you stand outside the fire.  
  
  
Standing outside the fire  
Standing outside the fire   
Life is not tried, it is merely survived  
If you're standing outside the fire.   
There's this love that is burning   
Deep in my soul   
Constantly yearning to get out of control  
Wanting to fly higher and higher   
I can't abide   
Standing outside the fire.  
  
  
Standing outside the fire   
Standing outside the fire   
Life is not tried, it is merely survived  
If you're standing outside the fire. 


	6. Chap 6: Kepp the Faith

__

Chapter Six: Keep the Faith

Faith was melting into Buffy's fiercely demanding, passionately burning kiss. She responds instinctively meeting desire with desire, heat for heat as her hands graze almost roughly over the blondes smooth, taut skin. Buffy's hands aren't idle either as they roam over Faith's body trying to pull the brunette closer to her.

Each second that speeds by Faith can feel her blood heating, boiling. Her passion builds as her desire mounts and her control vanishes. This is something she's been dreaming about since first meeting the blonde all those months ago.

Only this isn't the way she wants it. Not like this.

It almost feels like Buffy. This slightly rougher, but still undeniably beautiful, vibrant, sensual woman. Only this isn't how Buffy would go about keeping her from working for the Mayor.

No, Buffy would try kicking her ass or giving her one of those long winded speeches about right and wrong. She would never try throwing herself at Faith, prostituting herself more or less, to pull her away from Wilkens.

Still the feel of Buffy's hands blazing a trail along her skin, even through her shirt, her fingers gliding along Buffy's silken skin that covers the hard muscles underneath, their lips pressing together, tongues dueling as they try to delve deeper into each other, devour each other whole, is an intoxicating, heady, mind numbing experience.

With a loud grunt and a hard shove Faith finally manages to push Buffy away. She thinks it might have been easier, not to mention less painful if she had tried to rip her own arm off. With a tight glare she scowls at the breathless blonde who gawks back, her own breathes were coming in short gasps. "What the hell are you doing?" She screams at her.

Buffy blinks slightly, her chest heaving as she tries to regain her breath, stunned by Faith's reaction. She had been sure Faith had wanted this as much as she did. In fact she knows Faith wants this, she can still feel it. A light buzz that zings along her skin. "You want it, the same as me. Tell me I'm wrong," she challenges the brunette.

Faith's eyes harden as she gazes at the blonde. "I'm not some whore that you can use to scratch your itch," she snarls maliciously.

"That's not..."

"And I'm not some stray fucking dog for you to pat and treat nice and expect me to be at your beck and call," she continues cutting Buffy off before she could get going.

"God," Buffy snarls at her stepping back into Faith's personal space. "That is not what I was trying to do."

"Sure it is," Faith spits out. "Can see the little wheels spinning in your head, thinking if I can screw her so hard she sees nothing but stars I'll have her wrapped around my fingers and get her to do anything..."

Buffy's eyes go wide as her nostrils flare in anger. "You..." She growls angrily an instant before her right hook comes out of nowhere leveling Faith, dropping her to the floor like a sack of potatoes.

Faith stares up into the blistering light green eyes of one very enraged slayer. The brunette can't remember a time when she has seen anybody angrier in her life. Her step father, maybe, but she doesn't think so.

"You," she growls again in the same tone of voice. "Ever since I met you I've felt something pulling me to you. Something I've never felt before, with anyone. Yeah, I hate the fact that working," she sneers at the word, "for that abomination, but if its what you feel you have to do. Fine, feel free," she finishes roughly. With a final glare she stalks past Faith, across the floor and out the door without another word.

Faith stares at the spot the petite blond had just vacated momentarily stunned by what she had just said. Shaking her head she springs to her feet, rushing towards the door all in one smooth motion. After what she said she knows she owes the blonde an apology, then again Buffy needs to explain what she was trying to do, not the what. That's something Faith knows all too well, but why she was doing it here and now. Then there were some of the things she said. It was hard to believe one Buffy could be attracted to her while the other one can't stand having her in the same town.

Pulling open the door she burst out into the street but there was no sign of her anywhere. Spinning all around she still doesn't see the blonde. It didn't really surprise her. Buffy seems to have that talent of being able to disappear when she wants to.

"Shit!" She blurts out turning in another small circle taking a swiping kick at the building and cracking its outer wall. "Way to go Faith, way to fucking go."

Willow huddles, with her knees drawn to her chest, on Angel's- Puppy, in her mind- leather sofa. She had finally allowed him to convince her that she didn't need to be chained to the wall. After that she had changed out of her sleek, black leather body suit and into some of the fluffy clothes her human counterpart had brought for her. She knew Angel would be more apt to lower his defenses around her if he saw her more like this reality's Willow.

Thus, the clothes, the whole I'm evil and should just be staked because I can never be redeemed act. She was exceedingly glad they hadn't taken her up on that. She would've had to think fast and talk even faster to keep them from following through on it.

"Here you go," Angel says from the side as he hands her a large coffee cup. Willow grimaces at the foul smelling pig's blood. Noticing her face Angel adds, "I heated it up... So if you drink it down quickly you shouldn't notice the taste."

Willow takes the offered mug. It smells like sewage water to her, but she also knows she doesn't have a choice in the matter. Besides in a few days, a week at most she'll make sure Angel convinces her that she can be outside on her own. Then she'll be able to get something good to eat.

Lifting the cup to her lips she tosses the contents down her throat and somehow manages not to gag on the swill. "How can you stomach this?" She blurts out before she can stop herself. For a moment she thinks she's sunk her own plan before it has truly begun.

Angel however simply sits on the edge of the sofa next to her taking a small sip of his supper. "It takes some getting use to but its better then rats," he tells her simply.

If she had to breath she would have let out a relieved sigh at that point. Instead she looks at Angel with soft eyes as she asks, "how much getting use to?"

The older vampire shrugs for a moment before he replies softly saying, "a lot."

Willow frowns slightly, a look of concern marring her face. "How do you do it? Suppress the demon, keep it from breaking free?"

"Take one day at a time, one hour, one minute," Angel answers. After a moment he adds, "you have to stay calm, not let the little things get to you." As he places a reassuring hand on her knee he continues, "it isn't going to be easy, but you can do it."

The tiny girl gives her head a sharp jerk shaking her vibrant red hair. "I don't know if I can," she pleads quietly.

"You can," Angel assures her as a tear slides down her cheek. Smoothly he gathers her up in his strong arms, gently stroking her hair he says, "we all believe in you. Me, Willow, Buffy, Xander. All of us are here for you."

"It's just," Buffy groans softly as she settles her tray of questionable looking food on the cafeteria table. "There's something about her I don't trust."

A small scowl slips onto Willow's face as she sits down across from Buffy. "You sure it isn't Angel with me," she gives her head a slight shake as she corrects herself, "her you don't trust?"

The blonde gives her best friend a slight dejected shrug as she uses her fork to push the food around the plate. "I don't know," she admits softly. "Maybe," she adds looking up. "Its just maddening seeing Angel hold somebody, comfort them, make them feel better when he can't do the same for me."

"It's Willow though," Xander remarks holding a fork full of food up a few inches above his plate. "You can't think that Angel would be putting the moves on Willow, or that Wills would go for it even if he tries. She wouldn't do something like that to you."

"Our Willow wouldn't do that," Oz disagrees. "Don't forget, we don't really know anything about her. We all just assumed she was going to be like our Willow here."

"And she's not," Buffy adds glad to have at least one person who agrees with her. "I just think we should be careful around her for awhile anyway, until we find out if she's trustworthy." Seeing the looks on both Xander and Willow's faces she adds a whining, "please."

Buffy ruthlessly lashes out with her foot kicking the shin high granite headstone protruding from the lush green grass knocking the marker askew.

She couldn't believe she had been fool enough to throw herself at Faith like that. It was just about the dumbest thing she had ever done.

Cheek that.

It was the most hair brained decision she has ever made.

Again her foot makes contact with another headstone knocking it out of the ground.

What else had she thought Faith was going to think, going to do? Had she really believed that Faith was just going to...

What?

Make love to her. Be hers. Only hers.

Did she honestly think Faith was just going to walk away from the Mayor for her?

She wants Faith away from the Mayor. Faith knew that, knows it. She knows it, everyone knows it, well everyone that knew Faith was working for the Mayor anyway. It wasn't like she was making a big secret out of it.

It didn't keep her from making a fool of herself though.

Throwing herself at Faith like some love sick little girl. Admitting that she wants Faith to be her first. If that didn't make her the king of fools she didn't know what would.

She kicks the edge of a large mausoleum dislodging a corner stone.

As she comes around the side of the crypt she suddenly feels the presence of at least two demons nearby. Closer to her then they should have been able to get normally. Squinting her eyes slightly she realizes she has been sensing them for some time now, but she was so upset over her mishandling, her fumbling of the situation with Faith this morning that she had been pushing everything else aside.

Angry at herself for letting her personal problems affect her duty she bolts in the direction the demons are without the slightest hesitation. In a bare handful of seconds Buffy hits her stride looking like a blurring cheetah as she covers the quarter mile.

Two demons, large ones with a scaly, blue tinted hide. A ridge of small needle like spines runs from the top of their skulls to the middle of their backs. Broad shoulders, with a large curving bone spike jutting from each shoulder. Their arms, like their legs are long, with thick roping muscles. Their fingers as well as their toes are tipped with razor sharp talons.

Their single piece of clothing is a simple kilt made from hundreds of strips of hard leather. It vaguely reminds her of something she had seen in a history book back when she went to high school. It was like what Roman legionnaires wore into battle.

One man lay slumped over a thick, knee high marble headstone. Another was crumpled at the base of a large marble altar. If either of them were still alive she couldn't tell.

She almost feels sorry for them. Maybe she would have if she didn't come from a world where, in some places, a candy bar was more expensive then a human life. Or if she hadn't been forced to kill her share of humans over the years.

As far as she is concerned, if they were dead then their battle was done and the most she could do for them is avenge them. If they've somehow manage to stay alive then they'll be saved along with their three friends, two attractive middle aged women and a roly-poly man that looks like an accountant. Between the two demons they were being swatted around like rag dolls.

Buffy was mildly surprised to see that anyone was still alive considering how long they must have been trying to fend off the two demons while she wondered around in a fog. If the two men were dead more then likely it was her fault for not getting here quick enough.

For allowing her problems to interfere with her job.

She couldn't allow any of it to effect her now.

Not her feelings towards Faith. Not the fact she wasn't here in time to save people that could have been saved. None of it.

She had to be cool, emotionless, an efficient killing machine dedicated to eradicating demon kind wherever she found them.

Still it was going to make her feel so much better to cut loose on a pair of demons. Work out her anger and frustration over such a lousy day.

With a silent snarl, her right foot pushes of a thigh high cross carved from white granite, she launches herself into the air. Her flying side kick connects with one of the demon's jaw with bone crushing force.

All three of them go down in a heap. Rolling with her fall she comes up on her feet as do the two demons.

The closest one takes a back hand swipe at her face. She ducks underneath the blow, twirling in a tight circle on the ball of her right foot, her left leg extending to clip him just below his calf, then snapping back in and jerking him off his feet.

He lands on the ground with a solid thud just as the second demon tackles her to the ground. They roll over several times before coming to a stop with her on top. She jerks her hand back slightly to deliver a sharp blow to his neck.

She feels a sharp twinge in her side just under her raised right arm. Its not even something she really registers as the demon manages to block her punch. Catching the blow on it's scaly forearm. A moment later it's sharp claws rake across her face opening several shallow gashes along her cheeks. The force of the blow is enough to send her reeling back.

As she flips to her feet, her body feeling sluggish, she knows she should have been able to see that blow coming, not to mention blocked it before it ever got to her.

Another sharp pin prick jabs into her left lower back just above her hip. Instinctively she swats at the spot dislodging a tranquilizer dart as she spins around taking in all of her enemies.

The two demons had backed off slightly, obviously planning on giving the drugs a chance to kick in before taking another shot at her. The five humans though all had her in the cross hairs of their high tech dart guns. The three that had been fending off the demons were holding pistols while the two she thought might be dead are armed with scoped rifles.

Relying on years of intensive training she consciously starts pumping adrenaline into her system hoping its just a sedative filling the darts. If not she can only hope her natural slayer metabolism will help her body reject whatever agent is in her blood stream.

One of the woman fires just before the other two pistol wielders. Buffy swats that dart aside with a contemptuous sneer, glad that her eyesight was still as good as ever. Before the other two darts can reach her she breaks into a sprint heading for the nearest rifleman. The two darts whiz past just barely missing her. A fourth dart lodges in her right quad as she dodges the darts being fired at her from the man she is charging.

She can tell that whatever drugs, sedatives, poisons, or mixture the darts are filled with are extremely powerful as it seems to take her forever to reach the rifleman. With each step closer she can hear the darts whip past her, occasionally she can almost feel the breeze the create as the past within inches, if not closer to her flesh.

The rifleman rises smoothly to his feet, like the professional soldier he is, once he has fired the last shot he was going to get off at her before she reaches him. A shot she seems to slip as if she was watching it come at her in slow motion. He didn't know how she was still on her feet after being hit by just one dart much less the two, maybe three, she has been hit with.

Shifting his grip on the rifle so he could use it like a staff or a club he swings the butt at her head. He stares open mouth as the hard plastic slaps into her palm and stops. He can't move, his body seemingly shuts down as he stares into a pair of bright, malevolent eyes that have already decided his fate.

Buffy's fingers squeeze, tightening on the hard plastic butt of the gun with enough force to crack it. With a quick jerk of her arm she rips the rifle out of his nerveless hands. Grabbing hold of the barrel with her right hand, she swings the rifle up and over her head faster then the human eye can follow, but far slower then she is use to.

The butt of the rifle smashes into his ribs, pulverizing the bones with the force of the blow. She pirouettes backward, on her left foot accelerating, building her speed and power. The butt slams into his neck nearly taking his head clean off of his shoulders as he flies nearly half a dozen feet away.

As the rifle connects with Buffy's target another dart jabs into her side. She can feel the powerful drugs working in her system, trying to drag her under, but she knows if she falters, if she wavers, if she stops for even a moment then she is dead, and she refuses to just give up. No matter what she will never stop fighting to live. If she is going to die then she's going to go down swinging.

She continues to spin, forcing her body to move despite the fact it just wants to lie down. Her hands shifting along the rifle as she picks up her target some fifty yards away. The other rifleman. She knows she was only going to get one shot at this so she better not miss.

She hurls the rifle like a javelin. It crosses the intervening space like a speeding bullet. The rifle flies true, the barrel piercing his chest, his heart, sliding through flesh and bone like a hot knife through melting butter. Then embedding itself into the base of the marble altar pinning him to the landmark as his body spasms for a fleeting second before going limp and slumping onto the rifle butt, his knees held a bare handful of inches off the ground.

Before the gun is even halfway to its mark Buffy is already moving, rolling away from where she had stood. As she rolls along the ground she manages to gather up a handful of pebbles.

While coming to her knee she fires off one stone. As she continues to rise to her feet she whips two more tiny stones. The first one goes just a little high shattering into powder upon hitting the crypt wall. The second rips into the accountants eye popping it like an over ripe grape as it rockets through skull and out the back.

The third high velocity projectile tears through the brunette's right shoulder a bare instant before a fourth and fifth stone punch holes in her sternum and throat respectively while a sixth whizzes past just to the left of her skull.

The final gunman squeezes off three shots in rapid sequence at the same time as Buffy launches her five remaining stones with one last throw. One dart sticks into her left shoulder just below the collar bone. A second lodges into her just above her right hip.

Across the small clearing the tall blonde drops to the ground, her eyes staring blankly up at the starry sky. A single bloodless hole punched through the middle of her forehead.

Buffy quickly plucks the last two dart from her body with numb hands as she whirls around scanning the area for any sign of the two demons. At least she thinks its her that's spinning around in a loose, slightly wobbly circle and not the world while she stands still.

Everything is coming in fuzzy, hazy. Blurring in and out on her. Not just her eyesight, but her hearing and sense of smell as well.

Even her demon sense has gone haywire.

She can't even tell if there is one demon around her or a thousand demons. She can't even tell where they are. She can barely tell they're there at all.

Sometimes fading almost completely out.

Sometimes roaring in so loudly she thinks she is being swarmed under from every angle, from every direction at once.

She lashes out blindly, stumbling, nearly falling, but somehow managing to keep her feet.

The only thing she is positive of is that she has to keep moving. Keep the blood pumping through her body as quickly as possible. Keep her hyper active metabolism counteracting as much of the poisons in her system as it can handle. Hope that its enough to flush it out before it can kill her.

She needs to move and quickly only which way. Every direction seems to lead to hordes of demons and nothing, switching back and forth so much, so rapidly that she wishes her head would explode.

Moving was hard to do as well with the world tilting this way and that all around her. Rushing up to crash into her face.

She rolls drunkenly to her feet, wavering and stumbling as she tries to run.

Suddenly a blue scale demon looms up in front of her. Just as quickly there are two more on either side of it.

She swings a tremendous backfist that hits only air. Its momentum spinning her around.

A sharp, slashing pain rips along her back.

She blocks across as she spins around knocking something away from her face.

A hard kick slams into her back sending her sprawling to the ground.

She rolls to her knees, instinctively blocking out to the side she intercepts another clawed swipe at her face.

Something heavy pierces her stomach tearing deep gashes into her flesh. A second later another swipe of claws cut furrows into her back.

Her fist connects with something as she lashes out blindly.

Another kick crashes into her back sending her face first to the ground again. She tries to get back up, to regain her feet, only claws continue to slice into her struggling body. Another set tears into her back, followed by another digging rents into her right side from powerful kicks.

She manages to roll to her left, away from the painful kicks, and make to her hands and knees. A hard kick to the left side of her chest lifts her up off the ground. A second kick flips her over to her back.

The world seems to lurch around her.

More cuts and rents, slashes and slices tear into her body as the pair of demons begin to truly work her over.

Buffy continues to struggle. Weak as her efforts are. The one thing she is grateful for having the drugs in her system is that her entire body is numb and she can't feel the pain from her injuries. Without the drugs she might not even be able to move with the amount of damage her body has suffered.

She knows this is the end. That there is nothing she can do to save herself. That the two demons are going to beat her to death and there isn't a thing she can do to prevent it.

It doesn't mean she is going to give up or stop fighting. As long as there is strength left in her body she is going to fight to live. Fight to the very end.

For as long as she can.

The hard driving beat pounds through Faith's skull as she mercilessly pounds on the specially reinforced heavy bag. It was the second one she has had to put up since she got in this morning after her blowup with Buffy. The other two she had torn apart over the day and now they were residing in the buildings basement dumpster thanks to the garbage shoot. With heavy tears and long rents in this bag it wouldn't be long before it was joining its two predecessors.

She still couldn't believe some of the things she had said to Buffy. She couldn't believe Buffy had decked her.

Well okay. That she could actually believe. Especially after some of the crap her mouth had been spewing.

It was Buffy. A harder, more cynical Buffy, but still Buffy. One thing she had learnt about the blonde was she seldom said something she didn't mean.

She could've taken her. Could have even kept her and continued working for the Mayor all at the same time.

Buffy had said she didn't care.

Only it would have been something rotten. Something she had spoiled. Something she had turned rotten.

But it wasn't like Buffy was some sweet innocent little girl...

Only that was what she had said. That she had never been with anyone. Never loved anyone liked that. It was something along those lines.

Was that it?

Was that why she had tossed precious little Buffy aside?

To save her. To somehow keep her safe. Keep her clean of the infection that is her life.

With a final savage punch to the ravaged heavy bag Faith spins around. "Jesus fucking Christ!" She curses kicking the plump overstuffed beige chair across the loft and into the wall.

Her eyes are wide, almost wild looking as she spins around in a small circle taking in the loft. "I need to get out of here," she mumbles seeing far too many breakable things around for her comfort.

Plus she needs to find Buffy.

For no reason she can understand she needs to make things right with the tiny blonde. Faith has no idea how to do that. Apologize. Or something like it. Maybe.

First thing she had to do is find her and she couldn't do that if she stood where she is the rest of the night.

Forcing herself to move Faith grabs her jacket off the bed and bolts for the door. She has no idea where Buffy is, but maybe Buffy would have some idea where she might have gone off to.

Not that Buffy was anything like Buffy, but it was worth a shot since it was the only idea she had other then roam around Sunnydale until she stumbles upon her.

Behind her, as the door slams shut, the hard, rhythmic almost primitive beat continues to pound through the loft.

The heavy black leather whisks softly several inches above the lush grass with each powerful, purposeful stride. A pair of heavy black boots squash the greenery underfoot. Spike looks around blowing out a thick stream of smoke between his mouth and nose. Unconcerned he flicks his spent cigarette away, the orange spark arcing high into the air before falling to the earth and vanishing in the neatly manicured lawn.

He inhales deeply hating the fact that he was back in Sunnyhell. Every time he was in this town everything conspires to make his life as unbearable as possible. Unfortunately the key to his final victory over the slayer was buried somewhere in this town.

Once he has killed her, proven to Drusilla once and for all that she is the only one he loves, has ever loved, ever will love he can put this cursed town behind him. Put his bloody obsession with killing slayers behind him and get the hell on with his bloody unlife.

Now all he had to do was find the Gem of Amara while not being spotted by the slayer or any of her bloody lap dogs.

Subtlety had never been his strong suit. Neither had sneaking around in the shadows or skulking.

Those were all the things the great poofter excelled in and he made sure, took great pains in fact to avoid doing anything the way Angelus would have done it.

He deliberately went out of his way to make as much of a raucous as possible. Everything had to be boisterous and uncouth just because he knew it would rankle Angelus. Plus life was just flat out more fun that way.

The first part of his plan involves a bit of risk. He had to find the right tomb which meant searching Sunnyhell's cemeteries. Luckily there were only two graveyards old enough to hold the crypt he was looking for.

Looking through both, with leaving no stone or headstone unturned would take him little more then a week. The entire time he was going to have to be living his life out of little plastic bags that can be acquired from the hospital for a few pounds. It wasn't the way he likes doing things but there was too much at stake here for him to take the chance of someone catching a glimpse...

He stops dead in his tracks, eyes flickering a dull gold as the strong, pungent order of blood fills the air. There is something about the blood he smells. Some alluring quality that tugs at his memory. Without really thinking about it he follows the scent back to its source.

The first body he comes upon is a man in his early thirties. Spike would have said the man was in better shape then he appears except he's dead. His head barely held on by a thin flap of skin.

Scattered a few yards from the body are five darts designed like hypodermic needles meant to deliver an injection from a safe distance. Four of them are stuck into other objects, the grass, a tree. One however was lying on the ground as if it was dropped there.

Looking around the area he can see other shapes lying at odd angles in the darkness. One had to be almost fifty yards away and held to the side of an alter by something driven through his chest and into the marble behind him.

Three others lay in a ten foot cluster with the closest to him being about twenty yards away and to his right. They might have been a little closer to him but not by much. All together the three points made an oddly shaped little triangle.

They however weren't what had drawn him here.

He turns his head to the right. Almost hidden behind an ankle high concrete marker was what had brought him to this spot.

There was something familiar about her scent, but something was off about it as well. Not just the drugs he had smelled on the darts either.

Buffy's scent was always fresh and clean. Like she had just stepped out of the shower no matter what she had just been doing. This girl smelt harder, like she didn't have enough time to wash away the stench of death.

Or she didn't care to.

He steps around the corner and lets out a low whistle. When he was a boy, before his father's untimely death, for some reason he couldn't remember he had wanted to see how sausage was made. He begged, he pleaded, he whined, and eventually he had gotten his mother to convince his father to take him.

That was what the slayer reminded him of. Meat getting ready to be ground into sausage. Although he thought the sausage looked better then the slayer did right now. Her body was sliced into ribbons. There were so many cuts it was hard to find a patch of unmarked skin any where.

The incredible part, the slayer is still alive. Her breathing is shallow. Her heartbeat is erratic, sometimes taking as much as ten to twelve seconds between strong beats.

"Well now," Spike murmurs softly as he pulls out his pack of cigarettes from his duster pocket. He squats down, pulling a cigarette from his pack and lighting it up while he looks the slayer over.

The girl looks far different then the last time he had seen her. She had a more militaristic appearance now. Her clothes, olive green fatigues, combat boots. Her hair was braided in a tight single weave. She lacked the make-up he was so use to seeing her wear.

"What the bloody hell am I going to do with you slayer?" He ponders aloud taking a drag off his cigarette. "I could kill you hear and now, easy as sin, but where would the fun be in that. Who would know it had been me? No one," he replies answering his own question. "You wouldn't. You'd die thinking some other blighter did the deed and that just wouldn't be right. When I kill you slayer you're gonna know it's me," he finishes tossing his cigarette away as a strange, almost protective light burns in his eyes.

Joyce hangs up the pay phone after her brief conversation with Mr. Giles. She found it odd how she still refers to him as Mr. Giles, even in her own head, after having sex with him on the hood of a police car.

Unconsciously she strokes the smooth surface of Buffy's driver license between her thumb and forefinger. It was the only piece of identification Buffy had own her when she was brought in. Her clothes, especially the green tee shirt, had been torn- you could almost say slashed- to pieces. Just like their owner. This little piece of plastic, along with the hospital records from Buffy's stay here last year, were what had enabled them to contact her.

She hadn't thought anything of it when she had first seen the flashing blue and red lights through her pallor's big bay window as she watched t.v. At least she hadn't until the police cruiser pulled to a crooked stop in her driveway. That was when she felt fear grip her heart, squeezing it like a vice.

Somewhere in the back of her mind she had wondered if this was what families of police officers and fire fighters feel in these same situations. Although she imagines its worse for her. Buffy wasn't even out of high school yet, and it wasn't a question of maybe this is going to happen to her, but when.

No parent should have to know what it feels like to live with the knowledge that they were going to outlive their own child.

The officer that had driven her to the hospital had been extremely calm, courteous, and understanding. He hadn't really known anything more then that Buffy had been in some kind of accident and that she was at Sunnydale General Hospital.

Accident. Joyce thought that was very nearly a laughable term to describe Buffy's condition.

The doctors had told her they had stitched up a hundred individual lacerations over her face and torso. All of which look like they were made by some type of claw. What made them left the doctors baffled, stumped, and bewildered.

Almost as much as the unknown narcotics they had found in Buffy's system.

The fact that her blood was also flooded with more adrenaline then the human body could safely handle had them in a stupor as well. The doctor Joyce had talked to had thrown around statements like; a hundred times, shouldn't be able to survive a tenth of that, and other such comments that she hadn't been paying attention to at the time.

Joyce didn't really care. Maybe the human body couldn't handle the shock. She was just glad a slayer could.

As Joyce moves away from the bank of pay phones in the hospital lobby she looks back down at Buffy's driver license. It had been issued almost two years ago, a month after her sixteenth birthday.

A slight frown creases her face. She looks up as she comes to a stop. "Since when does Buffy have a drivers license?" She murmurs out loud. Looking back down she adds, "from Louisiana?"

A questioning look slips over Buffy's face as Giles hangs up the phone. "What is it?" She asks the librarian out loud as he gathers his coat from the stand next to his door.

He finishes slipping on his coat before turning to look at her, a heavy sigh whistling past his lips. "That was your mother," he begins somewhat reluctantly.

"I got that when you said hello Mrs. Summers," Buffy interjects slightly annoyed with her watcher.

"Buffy's in the hospital," he says a slight note of reproach in his voice.

"What?" Buffy gapes her eyes nearly popping out of their sockets. Her doppelganger could be a bitch not to mention irritating and annoying as all hell, but she was also extremely competent at her calling. "How bad is it?" If something was capable of putting her in the hospital it was going to require her and Faith working together in order to deal with it.

Something they haven't done since Finch.

Plus there was a little piece of her that almost feels like it is a family member in the hospital. A distant cousin to be sure, but still family.

"Your mother didn't give any particulars, but from her voice I'd say it isn't good," he replies solemnly.

The library doors swing in as Faith enters the room. The brunette strides across the floor as if she is on a mission. "Hey, either of you seen B. I've been looking all over and..." She gives a slight shrug as she continues saying, "she is one girl that doesn't get found when she doesn't..."

"Thought the two of you were inseparable?" Buffy cuts her off surprised at the anger in her voice.

"Yeah well, got into a fight over something stupid and she bailed," Faith answers sounding defensive and hating that she sounds defensive. "What the hell's going on?"

"She's in the hospital," Buffy snaps at her.

Faith blanches, her skin taking on a ghostly color, her knuckles whitening as her fist tighten. "What happened?" She demands in a deathly quiet voice already having some idea as to what happened.

"We don't know," Giles responds. "More then likely it was a set up. Probably meant for either Buffy or yourself," he adds. "Now, I really do have to go, so if you will both..."

"You ain't going anywhere without me," Buffy cuts him off before he can finish. Flying around the library she gathers up her own coat, books, and bag.

Buffy's sudden flurry of activity seems to snap Faith out of her slight funk. The mayor had promised her two days. He hadn't even given her twelve hours. "I'm going," she hisses surprising both Buffy and Giles as she turns on her heel and storms back out the library doors she entered just a few minutes ago.

Willow paces restlessly in Angel's kitchen as she waits for the microwave to warm her blood. A pensive frown creases her lips as she prowls the small confines. She would much rather be out hunting right now, but sacrifices were going to have to be made if her plan was to succeed. The young vampiress only wishes someone else had to pay the price of her sacrifices.

It didn't matter.

Soon enough everyone would be paying for their arrogance. All she needs is a few days to gain Angel's trust.

Angel watches her from just inside the open the kitchens doorless entryway. He could understand her anxiety. This is the prime hunting time right now, between ten and three. While the clubs are packed and the bars are just letting out. Before everyone is tucked neatly into their own beds all safe and secure.

This is the time when a vampire feels the urge to hunt, to kill, the most.

Even after all his years of dealing with the desire it never lessens. Not an ounce. Not in all the years since he stopped feeding on humans.

Angelus' brief return last year did quite a lot to erode the restraint he had spent years refining. It was returning slowly. A little every day.

"You should just kill me," Willow says suddenly even though she doesn't mean a word of it. Turning slightly she looks out the window and into the darkness with a wistful light in her eyes. "It would be safer for everyone if I wasn't... If I didn't want..." She gives her head a sad shake as a handful of tears slide down her cheeks. "I can hear them calling to me, feel the pull of their blood, their heat, their lives just... I want to be out there so much," she whines plaintively knowing it is easier to deceive with the truth then a lie.

"It will get easier," Angel assures her softly as he moves up behind her, resting his large hand on her slim shoulder and squeezing firmly. "You just have to give it a little time."

"I don't deserve a little time," she sobs quietly letting her head drop until it touches her chest. "I don't deserve any of it. I'm evil, I'll always be evil. I'll never be good. Not like you."

Angel shakes his head slightly as he pulls her back into his large frame. He wraps his arms around her, embracing her tightly, offering the young vampire the strength she needs. Softly he confides, "I'm not always good. In fact I've been known to screw up a lot. Pretty big ones too so I wouldn't use me as a role model for being good."

"Then what am I suppose to do?" Willow pleads as she turns in his embrace. Crying softly she lays her head on his chest while wrapping her tiny arms around his waist.

Angel doesn't respond. There really isn't anything he can say to her. Its something she is going to have to figure out on her own.

All he can do right now is offer her what support he can. Moving his right hand up he gently smoothes her hair down hoping the motion will soothe her.

Unnoticed next to them the microwave beeps several times as it finishes heating up the container of blood.

"Why that dirty little fink," Willow murmurs as she looks through her binoculars at the two vampires as they embrace.

"Which one?" Xander inquires as he looks through his own set of binoculars. There's an almost gleeful note in his voice as he imagines what Buffy is going to do Angel once she finds out about how her boyfriend is spending his nights.

"Her, him. Both of them," she replies in a huff.

Oz lowers his binoculars as he says, "at least we know Buffy isn't imagining things."

"Is this all I'm ever going to do?" Willow mumbles to herself softly. "Go around ruining all of my friends relationships with my cheap trollopy ways?"

"Hey," Oz begins soothingly as he moves to Willow's side giving a soft squeeze to her shoulder. "That's not you down there," he reminds her firmly.

"Yeah well, maybe that's not me, but its still my fault Cordelia broke up with Xander," she responds with a pitiful little whine.

"It was as much my fault as yours," Xander replies as he turns to face his oldest friend. "Besides I was getting tired of almost being accepted anyway. Who knew that not getting locked inside of lockers would be so boring?" He jokes lightly trying to cheer Willow up.

Willow gives Xander a brief smile for his attempt to keep her spirits up. "What are we going to tell Buffy?"

Oz sighs slightly as he continues to stare over Willow's head at Angel's mansion. "Lets keep our heads about this. We don't really know that anything's going on between them. It could be something completely innocent that we're blowing out of proportion. If we say something now..."

"We get Angel out of Buffy's life once and for all," Xander cuts in with a glaring scowl at them.

"You're not going to say anything to Buffy," Willow responds locking eyes with Xander. "You're not going to ruin her relationship with Angel just to make yourself happy. Until we know exactly what's going on between Angel and me none of us are saying anything to Buffy," she finishes with a stern glare directed at the lanky brunette.

She holds Xander's gaze for several moments before he finally looks away. As he stares back at the mansion Willow swallows hard worrying if she'll be able to hold her tongue around Buffy. The last thing she wants is to be responsible for ruining Buffy and Angel's relationship over what might be nothing.

It was Buffy. Even through the bandages and the stitches Joyce could tell it was Buffy. It just wasn't her Buffy.

If nothing else told her that, the blood soaked clothes did. Olive green military fatigues, black combat boots. Neither was something Buffy would be caught dead wearing.

It didn't do anything to lesson her concern for the young girl lying in the bed. A girl possessing her daughter's face. That was an exact duplicate of Buffy. The girl must have family out there somewhere, concerned for her safety, but they weren't here and she is.

Joyce didn't know how she came to look like Buffy. She just assumes it has something to do with living in Sunnydale. Living on top of the hell mouth.

As the door opens Joyce looks up. "How is she?" Giles inquires as he steps into the room. She blinks several times as a moment later Buffy slinks into the room followed closely by Faith.

Instantly she's out of her chair upon seeing Buffy. It was one thing knowing it wasn't her daughter lying in the bed fighting for her life. It is quite another seeing that proof before her.

She crosses the intervening space so quickly she barely looks like she moved at all. One moment she was at the bedside the next she was enveloping Buffy in a tight hug saying, "thank god you're all right. When the officer showed up at the house saying you were at the hospital, that you had been in an accident I thought... I felt like I was going to die."

Giles shoots a quick glance at Joyce while Faith moves to the near side of Buffy's bed. "You mean to say you can tell this isn't Buffy?"

Joyce looks up at Giles with an icy gaze. She still hadn't come close to forgiving him for his part in putting her daughter in even more danger then she was normally in. In a voice that makes her stare seem warm she says, "I do know my own daughter Mr. Giles." As she looks at the man another possible reason for why this girl looks identical to her daughter occurs to her. "Maybe you could tell me what that council of yours is up to masquerading this poor girl around as Buffy?"

"Mom," Buffy says urgently drawing her mother's eyes to her. "The council didn't have anything to do with this... And that really is me."

Joyce shakes her head from side to side. "What? How? What do you mean?" She demands in a quick rush.

"Its me, just not me. Willow did this spell that brought me from a different... There, here and she kind of decided to stay here because she didn't like it there," Buffy explains confusing the matter even more.

The older woman stares at her daughter for several moments before saying, "would you explaining that again. Only this time try using English."

"A bit more then twenty-four hours ago Willow and a classmate did a spell that bridged this reality with one that closely mirrors this one and transported that reality's Buffy and Willow to this reality. After a lengthy debate and in an attempt to maintain the integrity of the boundaries between our two realities it was decided they would remain here."

Joyce stares at Giles as if he had horns growing out of his head before shifting her gaze slightly to glance at Buffy. "I thought I asked for English?"

"You didn't specify American," Buffy whispers back.

Giles ignores the mother-daughter by play with the simple efficiency of looking towards the injured slayer lying on the bed. Faith standing at the bedside obscures most of his view. "Does anybody know what happened?" He inquires turning his attention back to the two Summers women.

Joyce shakes her head still not satisfied with the explanation of how she came to have two daughters. "According to the police the nurse at the front desk said she was just there when she looked up, sitting in a chair directly across from her. Nobody saw her come in. No one saw anyone drop her off. She was just there one moment and nobody knows..."

"I did it," Faith says softly, her voice thick, almost raw with emotions. Her words bring a deathly hush to the room. "She's here because I put her here."

________________________________________________________________________

Keep the Faith - Bon Jovi

Mother mother tell your children   
That their time has just begun   
I have suffered for my anger   
There are wars that can't be won   
  
Father father please believe me   
I am laying down my guns   
I am broken like an arrow   
Forgive me   
Forgive your wayward son   
  
Everybody needs somebody to love   
(mother, mother)   
Everybody needs somebody to hate   
(please believe me)   
Everybody's bitching   
'cause they can't get enough   
And it's hard to hold on   
When there's no one to lean on   
  
Faith: you know you're gonna live thru the rain   
Lord you got to keep the faith   
Faith: don't let your love turn to hate   
Right now we got to   
Keep the faith   
Keep the faith   
Keep the faith   
Lord we got to keep the faith   
  
Tell me baby when I hurt you   
Do you keep it all inside   
Do you tell me all's forgiven   
And just hide behind your pride   
  
Everybody needs somebody to love   
(mother, father)   
Everybody needs somebody to hate   
(please don't leave me)   
Everybody's bleeding   
'cause the times are tough   
Well it's hard to be strong   
When there's no one to dream on   
  
Faith: you know you're gonna live thru the rain   
Lord you got to keep the faith   
Faith: Now you know its never too late   
Right now we got to   
Faith: Don't let your love turn to hate   
Lord you got to keep the faith   
Keep the faith   
Keep the faith 

(Oh we got to keep the faith)  
Keep the faith 

Keep the faith  
Lord we got to keep the faith   
  
I've been walking in the footsteps   
Of society's lies   
I don't like what I see no more   
Sometimes I wish that I was blind   
Sometimes I wait forever   
To stand out in the rain   
So no one sees me cryin'   
Trying to wash away the pain   


Mother father

(Everybody needs somebody to love)   
There's things I've done I can't erase

(Everybody needs somebody to hate)   
Every night we fall from grace 

(Everybody's bitching cause they can't get enough)  
It's hard with the world in yours face 

(Everybody bleeds)  
Trying to hold on 

(Everybody bleeds)

Trying to hold on   
  
Faith: you know you're gonna live thru the rain   
Lord you got to keep the faith   
Faith: don't let your love turn to hate   
Right now we got to keep the faith   
Faith: now it's not too late   
Try to hold on, trying to hold on   
Keep the faith 


	7. Chap 7: All I Really Want

Chapter Seven: All I Really Want

"I did it. I'm the reason she's here," Faith murmurs softly drawing everyone's eyes to her as she continues to stare at the small blonde lying on the hospital bed. "It's my fault she's like this."

Buffy moves with all of her innate speed. To the normal humans, Giles and her mother, she was one place then she is another. She grabs hold of Faith; her fingers tighten on the lapels of the brunette's denim jacket, hoisting Faith off the ground and slamming her into the wall with enough force to crack the plaster.

"What did you do this time? What the hell did you do?" She growls in a low hiss.

Faith's eyes harden as she glares down at Buffy. "Hands off B," she snarls. Her left hand slaps Buffy's right hand away a moment later her right fist crashes into the blonde's face.

Buffy staggers back the length of the bed, grabbing hold of it's foot, knocking it askew slightly, as Faith drops to the floor, her heels hitting the linoleum with a light thud. The two women settle into guarded stances facing each other. Eye's hard and sparks flying between the two of them.

"Keep your damn hands to yourself B," Faith warns.

Buffy takes a step closer to the brunette facing her. Her left fist dipping back to her side, her right hand clenched, index finger pointing straight at Faith. Before she can say anything, a staff nurse burst through the door. "What is going on here?" She demands harshly, her eyes taking in everyone in the room.

Instantly her keen eyes pick up on the damage and changes to the room, the cracked plaster, and the moved bed. Then there is Buffy and Faith, facing each other, looking as if, with each passing moment they are getting even more ready to kill each other. "Everyone out!"

Buffy= s head whips around to face reed thin woman. Faith straightens bringing her height closer to that of the old woman. Again, before anybody else can start speaking she begins. "This is a hospital room not center ice in Madison Square Gardens. I don't know if you noticed or not, but you're sister is in a bad way." 

Buffy blanches at the comment. That is something she hadn= t thought of before, at least not seriously. Buffy wasn= t suppose to be staying here, she should have been back in her own reality not cluttering up this one.

"A very bad way."

"She's not my sist…"

"She's my niece," Joyce cuts in decisively. "They're just about identical. Born on the same day, only minutes apart, but on opposite sides of the country."

"It's uncanny," the nurse breathes out.

Joyce snorts lightly just before saying, "that's nothing. They both have the same name. Buffy Anne Summers. How's that for uncanny?"

The nurse blinks at that bit of information. At the same time Buffy slaps her hands over her face in an attempt to cover up the extreme color blossoming in her skin. She couldn't believe her mother is creating this spectacle. The only thing she is grateful for is that her friends aren't here to see the performance her mom is putting on.

Faith smirks at Joyce. At what she is trying to accomplish with her act. Establishing B= s bonafides before somebody starts asking a lot of awkward questions. Her only hope is that B picks up on it before she ruins everything.

A light smirk crosses her lips as Giles steps forward. "You're quite right. We should be going. Give Joyce a chance to reconnect with her...Uhm…" He flounders placing one hand on Buffy's shoulder and guiding her towards the door. A quick, meaningful look at Faith gets the brunette moving towards the door.

Buffy's glare sweeps across the room before it vanishes with a small shake of her head. She stops by the door, her hand grabbing hold of the handle as she turns her head to look over her shoulder at her mother. "We'll talk later," she mouths silently. With that, she pulls open the door and slips out of the room.

Giles catches the door as it swings close. He holds it open allowing Faith to exit the room, than stiffly follows her out into the corridor leaving Joyce alone with a daughter from another reality.

Faith whirls, aside from Giles, Buffy, and herself the waiting room, oppressive as all waiting rooms are, is empty of people, a fiery glare blazing in her dark eyes. She despises the accusation that drips from Buffy's words, even more because of the truth behind them. She is the one responsible for Buffy lying in a hospital bed, on the brink of death just a few hours ago. It doesn't mean that she likes hearing the recriminations coming from the blonde.

Especially when it's as much her fault. That if Buffy hadn't hung her out to dry she wouldn't be in the position that she is in. That if Buffy had simply stood by her, accepted her share of the responsibility for Finch= s death.

She had been in that ally right along side her. Had in fact been the one that tossed Finch into the dumpster.

But no Buffy wasn't responsible in the slightest. She didn't drive the stake through the man's heart. That had all been Faith. Faith had been the one to abruptly and, cut short, a human life.

"I'm sick of this bullshit," she snaps taking a step forward. "You looking down on me like I'm a piece of crap you might have to scrape off the bottom of your shoe."

"What are you going on about?" Giles inquires placing himself between the two slayers. His only hope is that neither one of them is riled up enough to go through him, to get to the other.

At the same time Buffy steps towards the brunette. Her own, powder blue eyes glittering in the fluorescent light. With an icy chill in her tone, she responds saying, "I've never treated you as anything other then a friend."

Faith snorts, a derisive sound that tells Buffy exactly what she thinks of her statement. "You've never treated me as anything other then extra muscle when you need it."

"I had you over for Christmas," the blonde points out angrily.

"Joyce invited me over, you just delivered the message. Than you couldn't get out fast enough."

"You're talking about stuff you don't have a clue over."

"Whose fault is that?" Faith demands in a harsh growl. "Friends talk, share things, hang, do stuff…"

"Oh, that's rich coming from Ms. Lets repress our feelings and not deal with anything until it spirals out of control."

"They don't commit murder in a back alley, then bail and dump all the blame on their friend," she finishes with a snare.

"I never…"

"You killed someone Faith, You gotta deal with it Faith. Sound familiar?"

Buffy blinks at the words. "That's not…" she stops, brushes the hair back out of her face. "You weren't dealing with it."

"I was dealing with it just fine," Faith counters.

"Please," Buffy breathes out softly. Derisively. "You were off in denialville acting like nothing happened and hoping it would go away."

"That is my way of dealing with life. If you have the shit alone long enough eventually it stops smelling."

"That's a way of dealing with a problem," Giles interrupts looking down at the younger girl. So far, the corridor outside the waiting room has remained empty but there is no telling just how long that is going to keep up. They need to finish this conversation in a hurry.

"What, shoving everything off on a friend," she draws the word out, "is?"

Buffy shakes her head, "That wasn't what I was trying to do."

"But it is," Faith breathes out feeling extremely drained. She sucks in a deep lungful of air.

"Faith," Giles starts softly placing a tentative hand on her shoulder. It is obvious; to him at least, that something serious is bothering the young woman. "Why don't you just start at the beginning. What exactly is it that you've gotten yourself involved in."

She looks up, doe caught in the headlights expression written across her face. With an exasperating sigh, she twirls away from his eyes that seem to know everything going on inside her head. Taking half a dozen steps away from him she runs her hands though her dark hair feeling a desperate desire to rip it by her roots. "The Mayor," she whispers without facing either person in the room with her.

"What?" Buffy gasps loudly.

"Bloody imbecile," Giles mutters. "What could have possessed you to do such an incredibly stupid thing?"

Faith whips around. Anger fueling her for a moment. It fades quickly as she shakes her head. "I don't know," she admits with an indifferent shrug. "Maybe I was pissed at you. You and your holier than thou attitude, all your little friends, you tame pet vampire boyfriend, looking down your noses at me. Telling me what a little piece of no good shit I am. Maybe I wanted to prove I'm as good as you, better even." She finishes with a tight laugh. With a defiant glare she continues to lock eyes with Buffy. "Or maybe, just maybe I was thinking I could get in. Find out some little... Morsel. Something I could bring back and say, ha this is his weakness. This is how we defeat him."

Buffy gives her head a sharp shake. She could almost see it. A day, maybe two, maybe that very night they fought on the docks. Faith; confused, angry showing up on the Mayor's doorstep. Unsure of what she's going to do, but putting on her hard, the world can't touch me, face that she always wore whenever she is afraid.

Giles sweeps his glasses from his face with his right hand. While Faith is speaking his thumb and forefinger press the bridge of his nose. As she winds down the ex-watcher slips his glasses back on. "Which one is it Faith?" He fumes. "It can't be both ways."

Faith growls, a soft sound from deep in her throat as she turns away from them. She paces to the long window overlooking the parking lot. She peeks out the clear glass at the cars down below. From the height she's at now full size cars look more like Tonka toys.

She lets her hand roll back on her shoulders to gaze up at the ceilings. A swift breath escapes her mouth. Finally, after several long moments Faith turns back around to face them once again.

"Don't you get?" She breathes out while maintaining eye contact with both of them. "I don't know why I went to him, just that I did." Her thick, dark hair sways from side to side as she gives her head a slight shake. "Everybody I thought I could trust," her eyes focus in on Buffy, "well they turned their back on me."

Buffy strides forward angrily. She had gone to Faith, time and time again. Repeatedly. Tried to help her, pull her out of the destructive state she fell in only to have the door slammed in her face time after time. "You shut me out," she gripes. "Every time... You told me you had everything under control. That you'd dealt with what you did." A grimace slips across her lips as she hears the last words that come out of her mouth.

Her expression hardens at the words. Razor-sharp daggers would be duller than the glare she directs at the blonde slayer. "That's right B, What I did. Me. All by myself. Alone in that alley, with nobody else…"

"That's not…" Buffy starts, but stops. Her head drops slightly, knowing the sound of insincerity when she hears it. Especially when it comes out of her own mouth. Looking back up her light blue, guilt ridden, eyes latch onto Faith= s dark, accusing orb. "You seemed so strong, like nothing could ever be capable of…" She's gives herself a shake. "Getting to you, hurting you."

"So you just hang me out to dry?"

"I didn't know what else to do," Buffy mummers quickly. "And that's not what I meant to do, hang you out, by yourself. It's just... I thought you could handle it. You said you didn't care, that it didn't matter…"

"We just…" She begins in a fierce whisper before stopping herself. Her dark eyes casting furtive glances around the otherwise unoccupied room. Satisfied that there is no one close enough to hear what they shouldn't. "You couldn't handle it, but you thought I could? What the hell have you been smoking?"

"There's nothing to be gained, aside from expanding the, gulf between you two, by continuing this conversation," Giles inserts reminding the two young women that he is still in the room. "Let's simply agree that we all butchered the events of the past week or so and move on." He looks first at Buffy then at Faith waits for their ascent, slight nods that barely move their heads. "While I would never have agreed to this course of action if I had been informed of it prier to its commencement I can= t deny the fact that it does give us far greater access to the Mayor then we had previously."

"Whoa, stop right there horsy," Buffy starts not believing the course of action that Giles is more than suggesting they take. "You can't be serious?" One look in his eyes confirms that he is. "It is like way to dangerous for Faith to continue with this... This... Wilkens isn't stupid."

"Which is why I have to keep it up," Faith informs the smaller girl. Her scowl deepens as some dark thought crosses her mind. "He's the one that put B here."

Giles eyes brighten fractionally. "Can you prove it?" He questions with a touch to much exuberance.

Faith shakes her head. "There's no one else though. He wasn't happy about her being here," she says but doesn't elaborate any further simply turning away for a moment. "He knows that I like her and he couldn't have that… Couldn't have my loyalties divided. Well he doesn't have to worry about."

Buffy frowns at Faith= s muttering. They definitely weren't anything she wants to know. She already suspected there is some kind of bond between her other self and Faith. The two of them simply hit it off, just clicked on their first meeting, but she didn't need to, nor did she want to hear about it. "If Wilkens realizes that I'm... I mean she's still alive what's he gonna do?" She asks fairly certain she, just like Faith and Giles, already know the answer.

"We have to get her out of here, secure her someplace safe, someplace Wilkens won't think to look for her." Giles mummers more to himself than either slayer, but with their superhuman hearing both Buffy and Faith have no problem listening to his mumble.

"You have someplace in mind?" Faith questions anxiously.

Giles nods as he answers the brunette saying, "someplace no one would ever think to look for her."

"This is insane," Buffy whispers in the dimly light, musty hall as she pulls the recently liberated hospital bed to a stop right before it runs into the back of Giles legs. "He's never going to go along with it. At least not while he's got that stick permanently planted…"

"Buffy," Joyce scolds cutting her daughter off before she can finish her statement. "I'm sure that Mr. Pryce will be more than accommodating once we explain the situation to him."

Buffy rolls her eyes, and Giles hand pauses for a brief moment before knocking on the thick oak door. A dull, heavy sound that hangs in the air.

"Once we put it to him, with the proper motivation, I have no doubt that he'll be amiable to going along with our plane."

Joyce eyebrows arch slightly as she stares at Giles back. There's a certain edge, an almost malicious quality to his voice that she isn't use to hearing from the normally reserved librarian.

Beginning to grow impatient waiting for his fellow watcher Giles once more raps heavily on the door. "I'm coming. I'm coming," Wesley's pinch voice announces from the other side of the door. "Just a moment."

Buffy taps her foot lightly as she waits for Wesley to open the door. A quick glance at her mother reveals that even she's beginning to show signs of her growing impatience. A little grin blossoms on the young blonde's lips and she suddenly hopes Wesley takes another few minutes to answer his door just so she could see her mom tear into him. Before anyone spots her secretive little smile she ducks her head so that she's looking at the concrete floor.

A loud clank, followed by sliding clink reverberates in the hall. A second later, the door parts slightly, a look of startlement flashing over his face. A bright, boyish but unsure smile crosses his lips. "Rupert, this is rather... Um, unexp…"

"Out of the way," Buffy mutters pushing the rolling bed forward. Nudging Giles out of the way, the bed hits the door forcing it all the way open.

"And Buffy," he adds with a grimace in her direction. "And another woman I've never met before." He finishes as Joyce steps past him.

Giles smirks lightly at the younger man's discomfort. "Joyce Summers," he informs his replacement.

Wesley nods at the information. "To what do I owe the pleasure of this completely unexpected visit? I assume it has something to do with whoever Buffy wheeled in a few moments before."

He nods at the comment while stepping into Wesley= s flat. "That's exactly why we're here," he confirms closing the door behind him. "A young woman that the Mayor's henchmen did their level best to kill. We needed a place they wouldn't think to look for her."

"So naturally you thought of me?" Wesley mummers smartly.

Giles rolls his shoulders. "It's no secret how we fell towards each other."

"No, it isn't. Which is why I'm surprised you would show up here."

"Desperate times call for desperate measures," Giles replies walking deeper into Wesley's large, but still extremely cramped flat. Bookshelves line the walls filled with impressive collection of tombs, volumes, and compendiums. "Willow will be doing a cloaking spell around the girl once she alters the hospital and police data bas. She can accomplish incredible feats with that contraption."

Wesley keeps pace with Giles as they make their way to where Buffy and Joyce have begun setting up the medical equipment, IV, monitors, and so forth. "So... Who is this woman that the Mayor felt threatened enough by to go to such lengths in order to silence?"

"This is the part that's going to be a bit hard to swallow," Giles informs the young man as he comes to a stop at the foot of the bed.

"I don= t see how…" He begins than stops as he gets his first look at Buffy who's diligently following the detailed instructions Willow gave her to hook up the heart monitor. Eyes wide, his head swivels back to Giles. "The man is bloody brilliant. He created doppelganger, a perfect clone of Buffy that could slip into our ranks to kill us while we are unaware of the switch," he blurts out in a rush. Then frowns for a brief second as he wonders aloud, "but then why would he... Of course! It so simple it= s obvious. I should have seen the problem immediately. Being a perfect clone of Buffy she would have an identical moral fiber making it near to impossible for her to obey Wilkens's orders hence he had to dispose of her." He finishes proudly, back stiff and a condescending smile that lights his eyes.

The three other people in the room all stare at him with eyes wide in astonishment. Giles is the first to recover from his dismay enough to mutter, "sometimes, seeing your mind at work is truly amazing."

"Yeah, too bad with that amazing mind he couldn't buy a clue," Buffy snipes at her watcher.

"Buffy," Joyce scolds a mothering tint in her voice. "Be nice dear."

Buffy glares at her mother. "Who?" She questions with a small frown dipping the corners of her mouth. "It's not like he's ever been nice to me." 

Wesley frowns slightly as he removes and cleans his glasses during the verbal exchange between mother and daughter. Slipping his glasses back on he clears his through, then inquires, "then what exactly is going on?"

Turning slightly she faces Wesley. "She's me, only from a different reality…" She gives her head a small shake, still unsure whether she believes everything that has happened over the past several days. "Anya... Anyanka. The vengeance demon tried to get her necklace back. She tricked Willow into helping her do a spell. Instead of getting the necklace they got another me and Willow." She glances towards Giles with a smirk. "I can lecture people too. Only I didn't sound as dumpy as you guys when you do it."

Wesley ignores Buffy's remarks just like he's ignored people like her all his life. "Another you? And Willow?" Wesley inquires, a high pitch buzz like a wasp right on top of Buffy= s last comment.

"Wow. You actually do hear things when you listen to what others have to say," the tiny blonde gripes maliciously.

"And is this other you a slayer in her reality as well?" He questions, a tight pinch in his face squeezing his eyes together.

Buffy smiles much like a large cat would smile if they could. "Yep," she says with a small nod. "But you could say I'm the good twin."

Wesley swallows nervously trying not to think what this other Buffy must be like if Buffy considers herself the good one. "Why hasn't she been returned to her own reality surely even with your adolescent mid you must realize how vital her presence there is?"

Giles exhales softly, He should have expected this reaction from Buffy knowing how the girl despises the young man that took his place as her watcher. He hadn't wanted to bring either slayer on this excursion, both had their reasons to hate Wesley Wyndham-Price. Not the least of which is his betrayal of Faith. Which is in part the catalyst behind her reasoning for her seeking out Wilkens in the first place.

Unfortunately, they had need of somebody with the physical powers of a slayer to move Buffy and that meant either Buffy or Faith.

Perhaps the younger girl would have been the better option. She is definitely more adept at canceling what is going on inside her extremely thick cranium. At least until she reaches critical mass, at which point and time she explodes like a small nuclear warhead leveling everything in her wake.

"She decided not to return," Giles says before Buffy has a chance to jump down his throat.

Wesley gawks, his face closely resembling that of a Howler monkey. His mouth snaps shut for an all too brief moment. "And you allowed this?"

"I didn't really see where I had that much of a bloody option. By any measure of the word she's a grown woman capable of making her own decision. If she chooses to remain here that= s up to her," Giles fumes hotly.

"We'll see what the council has to say about that," Wesley declares turning in the direction of his phone only to stumble back quickly as he comes face to face with an irate Joyce.

"No. We won't," she announces.

Wesley stiffens under the older woman= s intense gaze. "She has a responsibility to that reality to protect and safe guard from the ever increasing forces of darkness just as your own daughter does here."

"Grow up," Joyce snaps at him causing him to give a small start. "I've known you less than five minutes and I can already see why Faith and my daughter don't like you. I don't like you," she announces taking a threatening step forward. "You're not going to call the council," she takes another step forward forcing Wesley to take a step back. "As a matter of fact you're not going to do anything other than allow this young girl to recuperate." She continues to advance as she talks causing Wesley to retreat. "If you think about doing anything else... Well I guess you'll find out where Buffy gets her sunny disposition from." Wesley back hits the wall and Joyce looms over him despite the fact he's several inches taller than her.

"Oh, I don't think that will be necessary," Giles muses putting his glasses back on. "Perhaps we should let him put a call in to the council. Allow him to explain how; a slayer under his watch could slip to the dark side. Worse, how it might be possible that he drove her there. I'm sure they would be more than interested in learning which. Of course people like Quentin Travers it really won't matter. As soon as he learns of it... I don't imagine he'd be in the most understanding of moods."

Wesley jerks his head from one side to the other. His face scrunched up tightly as he looks at Giles through squint up eyes. "I take there= s something else you have neglected to inform me of?"

"I'm informing you of a situation I just discovered at the earliest possible opportunity," Giles answers in a decidedly condescending tone. "After your, and the council's, botched attempted abduction of Faith she decided it was time to branch out. See if the grass is greener on the other side, so to speak, by going to work for Mayor Wilkens."

Wesley= s head snaps towards the bed and Buffy lying there. Realization seems to slap him in the face. "That's why Wilkens tried to have her killed," he begins turning back to face the older man. "She discovered Faith= s treachery. Somehow, Wilkens uncovered her discovery and tried to silence her before she could tell you. Only she still managed to import the vital information to you."

Buffy and Joyce exchange quick glances while Giles gives his head a vague shake before responding. "Faith actually explained everything that happened."

The last candle flickers out. Plunging the room into a dim semi-darkness. Gutted by a sudden wind that rises up in the room that is completely sealed to the outside. For a long moment, there's a vague sense of something settling over the room.

Willow slumps in exhaustion. Her body seeming to collapse in on itself. After casting the soul restoration on Angel last year she thought that was about as exhausted as casting a spell would ever leave her, but a few of the spells she cast over the summer, and this cloaking spell she just finished she's beginning to realize the soul restoration can very nearly be considered standard. Run of the mill. Ordinary.

Oz's strong hands steady her before she can fall to the floor. "You okay?" He questions with concern dripping from his voice.

Willow nods saying, "it just took a little more out of me than I thought it would. I think I just go home and sleep. Maybe until graduation? Do you think that'll be okay," she murmurs her voice fading as she falls asleep.

"No," Oz responds pulling her close to him. Stroking her hair softly as his gaze shifts to Buffy, the accusation clear in his eyes. "You sleep as long as you want."

Buffy holds his gaze, arms folded across her chest, for a moment before going to check on Buffy.

Wesley flicks on the lights. "Wasn't that interesting," he mumbles to himself. He glances at the old maple mantle clock sitting in the middle of his bookshelf.

"Willow's quite good for someone who's never received the proper training," he remarks unexpectedly, out of the blue. "Amazing to think the first major spell she cast was a soul restoration on a vampire with the added twist of a... Happiness clause for lack of a better term."

Wesley frowns unsure of what message Giles is trying to pass along. "You point being?" He inquires taking in the people filling his flat, a werewolf, a witch, two identical slayers-one from this reality one from another-and their mother. Along with the pair of them.

"I'm taking Willow Home," Oz announces as he lifts Willow's slight body.

Buffy stands up. Looking from Giles to Oz, she lets out a soft exhalation. "I'll go with. Still have to do my rounds tonight anyway," she finishes with a shrug.

Giles smirks lightly leaning his shoulder against the maple wall paneling as he watches the three youths make their way out of Wesley's front door, closing the wooden structure behind them. Once their gone he turns his full attention back to the young watcher watching him. "Just making sure you have a clear picture of what the consequences of telling the council will be."

Wesley shoots Giles a tight glare out of the corner of his eyes. "I remember our agreement. I keep what I know about there being a second Buffy to myself. You, Buffy, and the rest of her fawning sycophants keep your mouths shut about Faith's little foray into evil."

"I should be going as well," Giles says straightening up. Glancing at Joyce, he swallows nervously. "It wouldn't be any bother for me to drop you at your home," he offers politely.

Joyce shakes her head. "I'll be staying. I think it'll be better for Buffy if there's a familiar face when she wakes up."

A sharp rapping on the dark oak door alerts the head of the Watcher Council, Quentin Travers, of someone seeking an audience with him. He lets out a soft sigh as he glances at the heavy door. Placing a bookmark in the book he's been perusing for sometime now he closes the heavy tomb.

Leaning back, he glances around his plush office. The dark furnishing, bookshelves that line every wall; except where the tall liquor cabinet to his right, the wall closest to his heavy rosewood desk. An overstuffed, black leather couch sits directly across from him, against the back wall three feet to left of the only set of doors in or out of his private offices. A pair of dark brown chairs sit in front of his desk. A thick, shorthaired blue carpet covers the floor.

He takes in a slight breath. "Enter," he says. Like always his voice seems to boom across the spacious room despite the fact he doesn't raise the volume in the slightest.

The heavy door swings open slightly, just wide for Bradley one of dwindling four that the head of the Watcher Council trust completely, to slip through and swing the oak door to behind him. Bone thin, and with a quickly reseeding hairline, beady rat like eyes, with a nose three times too large for his square jaw face.

Not for the first time Travers mused to himself that it would take a very special woman indeed to see something in the man to make dating him seem worth while, but than they would come face to face with perhaps the coldest, most disinterested man on the planet. Bradley was simply one of those few people better suited to spend the majority of their life alone and be content that way.

"To what do I owe the pleasure Bradley?" Quentin inquires, his tone droll as ever.

"There may be a problem with the Trinmalth," Bradley answers unhurriedly as if announcing it was in eighty degrees and sunny outside.

"What?" Travers bursts as he starts out of his chair. Once again he's reminded that the man has ice water running through his veins. The Trinmalth The artifact that allows them to monitor the slayer where ever she maybe in the world, as well as alerting them to when a slayer is called. All right from here. And Bradley announces it might be on the fritz cool as the underside of the pillow. "What is wrong with the Trinmalth?" He asks regaining his composure. Straitening his jacket, even though it doesn't need it, he moves out from behind his desk.

Bradley steps forward, lacing his fingers behind his back and stops, his head swivels around to follow Travers as he heads towards the door. Bradley shrugs lightly just before falling in step behind the older man following him out the door. "For almost a day now the Trinmalth has been reading a secondary signature on the Summers girl. Like a reflection or a shadow of the original. At first we just assumed it is an affect caused by the area. It= s happened several other times in the two years she= s been there. Approximately five and half-hours ago, the reflection flickered in and out several times during a fifteen-minute time span before strengthening. At the same time another slayer, a fourteen year old American, Rosalita Kennedy."

Quentin= s face scrunches up slightly as he strides down the long corridors. "What a god awful name." He gives his head a reaffirming shake. "Is there a watcher close to hand or are we going to have to put one in place?"

"She already has a watcher," Bradley answers succinctly finding himself having a problem keeping up with the heavyset man.

Travers nods mildly surprised by the information. It is an oddity to hear of an American potential with a watcher in place. Four of the last six slayers called from that upstart colony had to be trained on the fly, including that wretched little Summers girl.

"Then," Bradley begins again as if he hadn't stopped, "about twenty minutes ago Summers's reflection simply disappeared."

Travers stops dead in the hall. Bradley takes another step further surprised by Travers sudden halt. "Someone's trying to hide her," he muses thoughtfully.

He turns to face Quinton, the overhead fluorescent casting a long shadow. "That was my thought as well," Bradley agrees.

Quinton scowls tightly. "Rupert and that damn Summers girl are up to something. I want that new girl, Kennedy, tested. Make sure she is what Trinmalth says she is."

Faith shoves the Mayor's office door open, a devil may care smirk plasters her face despite the anger building just below the surface. She slips through as if she doesn't have a care in the world, flipping her sunglasses to the top of her head as she pops the big bubble she had been blowing having a good idea as to how he is going to react and relishing the little torment she can inflict in him.

Wilkens winces slightly, more at the minuscule spray of saliva then the sound. "Faith." He begins, a mild tone of scolding coloring his voice as the raven hair brunette sucks the gum back in her mouth.

"What's up boss?" She asks kicking the door to with her heel.

He smiles indulgently as he stands up. "I thought we talked about popping bubbles, how unsanitary of an activity it is."

"Sorry about that," she apologizes with a shrug. With a little hop she plops down into the cushion chair in front of his immaculately kept desk. "This is that new blackberry flavor. It's wicked," she puts in with a devilish tint to her voice.

"That= s wonderful," he responds in that nearly childish way of his. "I'm glad that it meets with your approval, but unless I'm mistaken we've got a few things to go over."

"Right." Faith says chewing hard on her gum, resting her elbow on her thighs. Keeping her mind on anything except what she actually wants to think about is the only thing keeping her from doing what she really wants to do right now. "So what's on the top of our to do list? Or maybe it's whose at the top?"

He leans against his desk, partially sitting but not quite. He studies Faith for a long moment, trying to read his young assistant. She seems in far too good of a mood for the events that transpired today.

His slight grin never leaves his face, but for the first time Faith notices it never really touches his eyes. Not for the first time since being called she feels as if she is in a game of cat and mouse. Only difference being is that she's the mouse to Wilkens's cat.

"Well, unless I'm mistaken we had a little agreement in place concerning your new best friend, what…"

Faith rises to her feet suddenly cutting him off, "doesn't matter now," she says striding to the window to look outside at Sunnydale= s downtown district.

If she didn't know better she could have been pulled in by the sudden shock that blooms in his face as he stammers, "Why... What happened? You so had your heart set on having her on our team."

Faith shrugs noncommittally as she turns back to face him. "She ran into something bigger and badder than her. She managed to make it all the way to the hospital but that was all she had in her tank."

He continues to watch her intently. She wasn't acting at all how he thought she would. "Are you all right? I know the two of you were close," far to close for his liking.

"Life of a slayer," she answers. "Sometimes you're the windshield, sometimes you're the bug. Ain't nothing for it. Except maybe find the bastard's that did it and turn them into Kibbles and Bits," she finishes a gleam in her eyes. "I need to hit something. A lot and really, really hard."

"In that case I think I might have just the thing for you," he announces exuberantly seeing his slayer rise to the surface. After a moment of internal debate, he scoffs at himself.

Angel descends the stairs, moving from the second floor to the first in near silence, whistling softly to himself as he buttons up the cuffs of his black, silk button down shirt. Lifting his head slightly he gazes around the foyer.

The room is still as barren as the last time he came through less then five minutes ago when he went upstairs to change. For some reason, with a woman in the house he kept expecting things to change, to be redecorated while his back is turned; for even the slightest, the shortest of instances.

What he keeps forgetting is that the woman in question happens to be a vampire as well. That for the most part, as a race, vampires tend to prefer that things remain just as they are. Without the slightest bit of change.

"You're going out?" Willow's soft voice inquires from jus6t inside the archway leading to the kitchen. A small, pensive frown marring her otherwise immaculate features. After a second she pulls the corner of her bottom lip into her mouth to chew on it.

Angel swallows reflexively as his gaze settles on the little red head leaning against the white plaster. An extra bulky, white sweatshirt with Harvard printed across in thick red letters. It hangs loose on her petite frame. A pair of faded Levis clings to her legs like a second skin.

Her dull, green eyes are downcast, demurely as her toes trace tiny lines on the floor. Her pale skin is nearly luminescent in the moonlight a stark contrast to her fiery red hair.

He could feel his dead body begin to stir, come to life -- in a manner of speaking. No matter how much he would like to deny it he couldn't. She is a beautiful woman captured in the prime of her youth, innocent now that she had that she had shed the leather and dark makeup, almost two years younger then that of her human counterpart.

He gives a minute nod to answer her question. "I'm giving Buffy a hand on patrol tonight," he says stepping completely into the living room.

Willow frowns lightly at his answer. "I thought the other slayer"

"Faith," Angel supplies.

Willow shrugs unconcerned, "was suppose to start patrolling with…" She grimaces before saying, "Buffy. So that you would be able to…" She lifts her head to look into his, dark eyes, a nervous, uncertain light shines in her green eyes. "Keep an eye on me?"

Angel smiles at her, meant to be nothing more than a small reassuring gesture. Willow's face brightens like the sun breaking over the horizon causing Angel's own smile to broaden fractionally. "Something came up. I didn't get many details, but essentially Faith's out of the equation."

Willow walks forward casually, a very subtle sway to her hips. She couldn't allow herself to come on too strong, Angel would bolt like a startled rabbit right into the arms of his little blonde slayer. Not something she wants to have happen. She stops at the back of the sofa, looks down for a moment as she runs her right index finger along the back.

After a second or so she looks up, but still not in his eyes. "Aren't you worried that I might…?" Her eyes flicker towards the window and the darkness beyond. "Go out and be evil while you're not here?"

Angel reaches out with his right hand cupping her small, delicate chin. Lifting her head up so he can look into her eyes. For a brief moment fear stands out sharp in her green eyes but it vanishes in a flash replaced by desire, burning hunger. A feeling he can appreciate standing this close to her.

He swallows lightly, but maintains eye contact with her. "You're stronger than you realize," he informs her with confidence. "This is something you can do. Something that you need to be able to do. You have to prove that you can control yourself. To Buffy, to Giles. To everyone else, but most importantly to yourself."

"You make it sound so simple," she murmurs quietly.

Angel smiles at her, his finger stroking her smooth skin ever so lightly. "I have every confidence in you," he responds evenly. His grin broadens a little. Time seems to stand still for a moment before Angel turns, grabs his black coat and glides smoothly out the door.

Willow smiles as she stares after Angel. He had confidence in her. She couldn't believe it. He thought she could do it. For a brief moment she feels a sense of warmth spread throughout her body.

Then she stops realizing exactly what she's feeling, a low growl rumbling deep in her chest. This wasn't any part of her plan.

It's suppose to be Angel having these kind of feelings not her. Angel is the one that should be having all these conflicting emotions. He should be the one going through this emotional dilemma.

Another growl erupts from her as she spins on her heel mumbling to herself. She begins reconfirming, in her head, what she is going to do to Buffy, Angel, Willow, Giles, Buffy, Faith, and everyone else in this thrice slayer cursed town.

Buffy hums lightly as she steps into the bright, sunlight cafeteria carrying her hard plastic orange tray. An apple, a cartoon of milk and orange juice, along with a bowl of some noodle like substance make up the contents of her tray.

She looks over the large, cavernous cafeteria trying to find her friends, Xander, Willow, and Oz, but like the last couple of days their nowhere to be found. It feels to her as if they're trying to avoid and she can=t understand why.

She can't remember doing anything that would have seriously angered any of them. At least she didn't think she had, but then again, with how things are going this year, and how her friends are reacting to some of her decisions. While not as good as they should have been who can say what they'll take offense to, or have taken offense to.

Sighing she takes another wistful look around the cafeteria trying to find a friendly place to sit. Or at least a neutral place. She'd even settle for a seat at the geek table.

As her eyes graze over the room again she spots, against the far wall, what might be her only-pseudo-friend in the whole room, Cordelia Chase, sitting all by herself. Letting out small, despondent exhalation just before making her way over to the school's head cheerleader.

Reaching the table, she stops. "Mind if I sit down?" Buffy asks diffidently.

Cordelia glances up at the tiny blonde standing in front of her, a very tiny almost nonexistent smirk creasing her lips. She shrugs lightly as she looks back down at her own tray and the minimal amount of food there. "It's a free country," she comments.

Buffy begins sitting down placing her tray on the table. She looks at Cordelia, a little uncertain, but decides it would be better off if she simply asks Cordelia what she wants to. "You don't happen to know where Oz is?"

Cordelia glances at Buffy, a little frown turning her lips downwards. "Since knowing where Oz is would mean knowing where Willow is and knowing where Willow is would mean I know where Xander is and since I couldn't careless where Xander or Willow is I don't have the slightest idea where Oz is."

"Oh," Buffy breathes out. She picks up her apple, looks at it, brings it to her mouth to take a bite, but stops. Lowering it, she looks at Cordelia. "It's just that for the past couple of days it feels like they've been all avoiding. Like I did something to upset them. Only I didn't. At least I don't think I did but I don't know if I did and I won't know if I did until I can talk to them which I can't do because they're avoiding me."

"Okay," Cordelia starts in exasperation. "Just because you're sitting at the same table as me doesn't mean we're friends, doesn't mean I want to talk to you, and certainly doesn't mean I want to listen to you rattle on about how the freak squad you generally lead left you high and dry and now you= re whining about it."

Buffy takes a small bite out of her apple as Cordelia rants. She chews diligently for several minutes before swallowing. "Does that mean you don't wanna know about Faith switching sides and going to work for the Mayor."

Cordelia's head snaps up, her eyes wide. "What?" She gasps in a hard whisper. "Why are you sitting here? Why aren't you out there bringing her to justice? You're the slayer isn't that suppose to be your job?" 

The tiny slayer smiles inwardly. This was part of the reason that she had wanted to find Willow and the others. She needed everyone to believe that Faith can no longer be trusted, not a very hard job with her friends.

Not that hard with her either she's ashamed to admit.

She had done the same thing with Angel last night. She had wanted to tell him what is actually going on, but both Giles and Wesley overruled her, so Angel's left in the dark. It is all part of the plan to convince the Mayor that he is Faith= s only source for love, caring, compassion, and understanding. In order to do that they need a very big, very public, very volatile break up to occur. Which meant that just about nobody could know.

Only those with an absolute need to know, knew.

She still isn't sure how Wesley fits in that category and not Angel. That didn't make a whole lot of sense to her. Wesley is far more likely to break if he were captured and question -- never mind tortured -- about which side Faith is on then Angel ever would be.

He took the news with his usual stoicism, but she could tell the information troubled him. At least she thought it was that that had his brows furrowed in his standard, overly pensive frown. Sometimes it could be hard to glimpse what is going on inside that head of his.

"I'm not sure," Buffy replies. "I just need to know if you've seen her acting weird, doing anything strange the past few, couple of days?"

Buffy's eyelids snap open like a pair of bullets shot out of a high power rifle. Everything is fuzzy, hazy everywhere except right in the center of what she= s looking at. The simple plaster ceiling is far way away from her.

It doesn't look familiar, but right now she doesn't think she'd recognize a lot right now. She could barely remember her own name, and she could simply forget about recalling the town she spent the night in. She thought there was a dale in the name somewhere, but it could have been vale or hale or anything that ended in an ale.

She thought she had been in a fight, but like everything else, she just didn't know. If she had been in one though it must not have been too serious. Nothing hurt.

She frowns at that realization. It isn't quite accurate. True, she didn't feel any pain, but she couldn't feel a lot of anything else either.

Trying to look around, to get some idea of where she is Buffy turns her head to the side, or tries to. Instead, her head just flops over, as if nothing is there to hold it up.

No strength what-so-ever. It's as if someone has drained every iota of mystical super human, even normal human-energy that she had, leaving her weak as a new born baby.

Only it is worse because she knows what she is capable of and this doesn't even register. Isn't even anywhere on the map. Not on the same continent or the planet. Maybe not even in the same galaxy.

There are bookshelves lining each and every wall. Her eyes shift ever so slightly trying to see more of the room then she can right now. An older, but still comfortable looking sofa dominates the center of the large room. Or she thought it did because that's the only thing she can see clearly.

As she lies there, Buffy lets her eyes slip close. She needs to find out where she is, what's surrounding. It's something she can't do and keep her eyes open. They're doing nothing but confusing her

Slowing down her breathing, Buffy calms herself. Slowly with the speed of a racing snail, she expands her other senses becoming aware of her surroundings. The first thing she notices her body, the slight burning sensation from a needle, an I.V. drip shoved into the back of her hand. There's something clamped to her right forefinger. Drugs, powerful painkillers saturate her system. No wonder, she muses silently, everything is so whacked.

Desperately with what little strength she has, one hand reaches across her body to the other hand and rips, claws weakly at the I.V. on the back of her hand.

"Buffy." A voice drifts up through the haze sounding like it is coming through a heavy layer of water. She ignores it or tries to but it comes again, "Buffy," a little more urgently. There's something familiar about the voice. Very, very familiar. A voice she has not heard in close to three years. "Buffy stop, please." Her mother's voice cries out as a pair of hands grab hold of her. Trying to stop her.

Desperately she continues to struggle to get rid of the I.V. trying to get her adrenalin pumping into her system she shoves at the hands touching her.

"You've been hurt. You need to stay in bed. Rest, get better." Again her mother's voice sounds like their head is stuck under water.

Buffy continues to at the hands, regaining some of her strength. She tries rolling away, to put a little distance between herself and her mother.

"Stop that right now," a different, almost manly sounding voice shouts roughly.

She crashes into the rail, her momentum tilting the bed over --Joyce makes a desperate grab at the bed, catches hold of the railing, but can't hold it up -- then sends it crashing to the floor. A sharp twinge, that she barely feels, jerks at the back of her hand. Unable to stop herself she rolls away from the bed. The room spins for a moment, just until she comes to a stop hitting the large antique roll back desk.

"Buffy," Joyce calls out rushing around the toppled bed.

"Careful," Wesley shouts. "That's a priceless antique," he continues as he closes in on her.

Buffy eyes dart around at the various voices coming from all around her. Her head is starting to clear and her body doesn't feel quite so sluggish. Just a little. With a sour grunt, she grabs hold of the top of the desk, her fingers digging runnels in the light cedar. "Back off," she growls with her head snapping up. "Or the roll-away buys it," she threatens seriously. Giving it a hard shake, she closes her eyes, squeezing them tight, tighter then ever before. Trying to get things straight in her head.

Her mother is here. How the hell did she find me? Buffy silently asks herself. There= s no way she could have found me, not here. Not...

Her thoughts falter as the last forty-eight hours come rushing back in a sudden burst, like a flood of images filling her head.

It isn't her mother. It's her mother, the other her.

She can still hear the woman's voice, somewhere, out there. Inching it's way closer to her. The same for the other, extremely familiar, voice. It continues to draw closer, droning on and on about some precious family heirloom.

"Shut up!" She snaps. "Just shut the hell up. Can't think straight with you…" Pressing the heel of her right hand to her temple, she tries to put events into some type of cohesive line: Patrolling, fight -- argument -- with Faith, the Bronze, another fight, hanging out with Faith, laughing, kissing, working for the Mayor, evil, a mistake, set up.

Pain pulses through her, intense. Like nothing she has ever felt before.

She drops back to her knees.

Everything hurts as a second wave of pain surges through her body. As a slayer, she's felt pain before. In fact she's dealt with it nearly every single day of her life.

"Wesley get the bed righted," Joyce orders reaching Buffy= s side. "It's going to be all right. You just need to give yourself a chance to heel."

"Get off me," Buffy growls trying to push Joyce away, but finds she lacks the strength for even that simple act. "I don't need your help."

A sad smile slips across Joyce= s face as she helps the young girl stand. "Yes you do." A low growl bubbles up from deep inside Buffy. Joyce ignores the animalistic sound. "I don't know what happened between your mother and you, why you seem to hate her? I'm not her. I'm not your enemy. I'm just trying to help you."

The words ring hollow to Buffy's ears. She's heard them, or ones close enough to them that it didn't make the slightest difference. Heard them the night her oh so loving parents brought her to the Wellmen Center.

If Merrick hadn't rescued her that night, swooped in, saving her from who knows what? A life spent in captivity. All because she thought she could trust her mom and dad. That they would understand and accept her. It had been foolish of her, but at the time she hadn't learnt how the world really worked.

Then a subtle thought tickles at the back of her head. Triggered by something Joyce had said. "I don't know what happened between your mother and you, why you seem to hate her? I= m not her."

She knew. She knew about Buffy, the supernatural, what had happened and she= s okay with it.

For whatever reason she didn't freak out, go ballistic, or overreact like her mother did. For the first time in nearly three years she allows the unquenchable hatred she feels for Joyce Summers to slack slightly. It didn't vanish, not even close, but she thought she might be able to separate what she feels for her mother, how she would react to her, and she= d react to Buffy= s mother.

______________________________________________________________________________________________

All I Really Want - Alanis Morissette

Do I stress you out   
My sweater is on backwards and inside out   
And you say how appropriate   
I don't want to dissect everything today   
I don't mean to pick you apart you see   
But I can't help it   
There I go jumping before the gunshot has gone off   
Slap me with a splintered ruler   
And it would knock me to the floor if I wasn't there already   
If only I could hunt the hunter   
  
And all I really want is some patience   
A way to calm the angry voice   
And all I really want is deliverance   
  
Do I wear you out   
You must wonder why I'm relentless and all strung out   
I'm consumed by the chill of solitary   
I'm like Estella   
I like to reel it in and then spit it out   
I'm frustrated by your apathy   
And I am frightened by the corrupted ways of this land   
If only I could meet the Maker   
And I am fascinated by the spiritual man   
I am humbled by his humble nature   
  
What I wouldn't give to find a soulmate   
Someone else to catch this drift   
And what I wouldn't give to meet a kindred   
  
Enough about me, let's talk about you for a minute   
Enough about you, let's talk about life for a while   
The conflicts, the craziness and the sound of pretenses   
Falling all around...all around   
  
Why are you so petrified of silence   
Here can you handle this?   
Did you think about your bills, you ex, your deadlines   
Or when you think you're gonna die   
Or did you long for the next distraction   
And all I need now is intellectual intercourse   
A soul to dig the hole much deeper   
And I have no concept of time other than it is flying   
If only I could kill the killer   
  
All I really want is some peace man   
A place to find a common ground   
And all I really want is a wavelength   
All I really want is some comfort   
A way to get my hands untied   
And all I really want is some justice...


End file.
